Ode to a Sturdy Door
As I traipse up a crumbly path, i spy the weather beaten clock clinging to the church tower, thin arms strewn about its forlorn face. The bare branches of late March make curling patterns across the ground, moving slowly beneath dappled light through the trees, getting set for the first flurry of fresh green.
Behind me the Lych gate sits statue still, its eyes firmly to my back, knowing full well l’ll have to dip my head in temperance under its beams once again upon my departure. I shall return again fair one day. Nobody enters these places without first bowing at the corpse gate.
In the churchyard the solider has been finally stood down, and now sleeps peacefully next to Mrs Matthew’s. A few feet apart, they are not saying much, but both know they have an eternity to get to grips with these things. I don’t suppose they ever shared the same air together, but now they are both closer than the dearest loves of their lives. Funny how life twists and then folds in on itself.
This gathering pace, I see the hurry everyday, i know you’ve seen it too, but in places such as this, an air of calm purveys. I sit on the bench that some kind soul has donated for the love of others, my back to the warm stone, a searing March sun sending its beams deep within. The east wind won’t find me here, i feel utterly protected.
For those who lay at rest in the grass, their running around now halted, those halcyon days resigned to forever yesterdays. It makes me think, if just for a mo, of all those i once knew and who stepped out before; into March sunshine like this, to hark the blackbird’s call, to think and hope (perhaps) that it may never end, and yet somehow it always does.
I’m holding onto moments like these, soaking them up, before the hands on the tower move me on. The ticking of the old church clock will tell us all when it’s time to go.
St Mary's Church, Upton, Wirral