Evening In The Churchyard

The Churchyard – Evening’ . . . WHB – Pen & Wash: 2021

The world does not die as the light fades

it does not sleep as the quick do.

It lives on in darkness

in the breath of the wind

in the sigh of the trees

and as the crows retire to their trees

and the dead decay in their coffins

the unquiet world moves on.

New generations are born

and in their tortured births

grow the seeds of their destiny.

The mole-turned turf

and the tumbled stones of hallowed ground

adding another tilt to their

melted and moulded memorials

while hope continues to rebuff despondency.

We look on in the twilight

coffin-cold visions countered

by the promise of another day

to follow the fading light.

A Death I Die

Loch Earn, Scotland

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow.

T.S. Eliot (The Journey of the Magi)

I wrote this poem, as I did several of my recently blogged poems, many years ago.
In ‘A Death I Die’ below the sober thoughts reflect a dark  mood,  the reason for which I now have no recollection.   For me, at the time of writing, they obviously represented the Shadow, that halfway house between knowing and not-knowing,
between what is and what might be,
between Eliot’s ‘the motion and the act’.

A DEATH I DIE

I have no heart for selfish love
that starts and ends with flesh.
It leads along an endless path,
it binds, compels afresh.

There is a sort of death I die;
Am killed and kill myself.
I am alone in this. I am a willing suicide.
I go on a journey bearing my own end.

This death is a habit, a nasty selfish habit
I know and hate it.
I both give and receive.
The giving is good
– but also a habit.

Receiving – an infinite regression.
We plan the means and the end is all.
Purgatory is the cemetery, time the resurrection.
And All is planned that This should be so.

Churchyard Blues– Five HAIKU

Haworth Churchyard, Yorkshire.  The Brontes are buried in a vault inside the church , except Anne who was buried at Scarborough.   Pen & Ink Sketch – WHB, 1983    ©

 

 

ACCEPTANCE:

Cradle of their births,
Shrouds for their future demise;
A place to belong. 

  

BELIEF:

To those with belief
Death does not come as an end;
With faith no one dies.

 

 HOPE:

Stay, hear, be silent;
Listen to the song thrush bring
Hope to the living

 

OPTIMISM:

Know, amongst these stones,
That life always precedes death;
Make the most of it.

 

 DOUBT:

If only God’s faith
Would strike my doubt ridden soul
I would die content.

Aysgarth Churchyard, Yorkshire – Pen & Ink Sketch – WHB, 1981   ©