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The Love Yard |
Here on the hill
Nowhere near a church
A tiny field with a tidy hedge,
Mown fine like a lawn –
A graveyard.
Two rows
Bodies huddled together neatly
No more than four inches between.
The back row dated 50s, 60s,
Moss covered and hard to read;
The front row 70s through 90s,
Sharpened edges, clean writing
In Welsh and English:
Thomases, Morgans, Williamses,
Bevans and Bowens.
Ieuans, Glyndwrs, Bronwens, Margeds.
Beloved, In Loving Memory
Never forgotten.
People laid under these stones
Were not dead,
They were loved.
They were not planted here in these holes
Because they were as cold
As the stones over them
But because they were mourned,
They were missed,
They had left holes
In people’s lives
That no one could fill with warmth.
This is not a graveyard
This is a loveyard.
Here lies love.
Not just a body but
All the love we shared
With him or her
Put into the ground after them
Because love, unlike life
Doesn’t just end there.
We put our love in with them
And stones that will last as long
As we know how to mark time
So we know,
Where they have gone
With our love
So we can follow after.
copyright 2004
Jeni
Bate |
