St Thomas the Apostle

The closeness sets in

and the halcyon melds with the

throngs, descending, the platform swells.

Arrivals arriving, departing, I.

Tickets, passes, northern sky.

I have friends who can tell me,

each from each,

morel from bolete, fir from beech.

Though I, sight-shot and disinclined,

pay little heed to type or kind

and amble gently toward the peak.

Bumbing bridles, twisting ways,

above, beyond, the churchyard lays -

church naturally in tow.

How many memories lie here?

The stones themselves forget the oldest names.

Nestled 'midst these ancient stones -

tender hearths for sleeping bones -

I am stretched from far ahead till long ago.

It wus St Swithen's yisterday,

a voice in garden corner says,

that's sun for forty days and forty nights.

These fleece-soft words, so plainly given,

strike a pang of grief within me.

Is there a patron blessing those who find it trite?

So many stones, lined end to end,

epitaphs of days and creeds.

Did Christopher watch their travels?

Did Anubis weigh their deeds?

That dog needs therapeh! It's wild!

It has been yapping, true.

Though the butterflies -

with flapping as erratic -

aren't eschewed.

As spectator to these lives I sit,

as often to my own.

I'll leave behind what's wrote and writ:

words, a stone, and bones.