Orcop

Driving south from Hereford one day in March

memorable for trickling piles of snow, with sideshows,

drift upon drift of snowdrops lapping the hedgerows,

we sighted the signpost and, on impulse, turned up

the winding, vertical road to Orcop. The church,

further away from the village than I remembered,

was no less an image of you than I remembered,

with its high-pitched, peasant roof and wooden steeple

on a slope with yew trees and a painter's view-

ploughed red soil, a pasture, a working barn-

that set it apart from the ordinary, just as your field stone,

when we found it, set you apart from the good people

labelled in polished marble, buried around you.

As in your life, though never aloof, you were alone.

I remembered how, when quietly you entered a room

in one of those woven dresses you used to wear,

heather or lavender, all senseless chattering would cease,

shamed by your dignity. I remembered your beautiful things:

your pots, your books, your cat, silver as your cross,

your delicate drawings. Yes, I remembered you exactly.

And there you were, still-beautiful, exceptional, subtle-

in a landscape of lichen I had to read like Braille

to find your name. I heard the first blackbird, then a thrush.

Later, as we left, the children we'd seen playing

among the graves when we arrived resumed their game,

using your stone, a hump from another century,

to hide behind, while one, the smallest, counted slowly.