calm now, and a new poem

2003-05-18 at 3:10 a.m.

I'm just like a seesaw at the moment, one minute up, the next, down. Now its like when you get two people of equal weight on a seesaw, they balance out and form a straight line.

Anyway, I just took a bit of a break from the net to eat a curry and watch a bit of Stigmata, and while I was doing so, wrote a poem:

An Old Country Churchyard

The air is still and fragrant
with soft scents of the sea
and new-mown grass.
A peaceful village, this,
few cars, few people,
a shop, a tearoom,
and the sea.

A peaceful church,
dark-stained, cards on a table
no scent, alas--
we live in Reformation times.
Just a church, well-used
with loving care tended
in Anglican security and love.

In the churchyard,
the dead sleep peacefully
no ghastly forms disturb,
no strangled lovers,
no silkies haunt
but well-tended graves
face the sea in death.

On these streets
the aged proliferate--
a good place to grow old,
gossip over scones and tea
escape anonymity.
A good place to die--
in beauty and in peace.

I visit often,
long for old age to come
and at the length of life,
a quiet grave
facing the sea
in an old country churchyard.

Its partly about Bamburgh. Except that Bamburgh is full of tourists and tacky shops because of the castle there, and the famous longsands. But before it became a tourist place, this is how I imagine Bamburgh. The church there is very nice too.

BTW silkies are a type of Northumbrian ghost, a woman whose silk dress rustles as she walks.

I've wanted to live in Bamburgh since I was a little girl, its really beautiful round there. Its all countryside and the coast, there aren't many towns, and there aren't many people who live there either. One day, I'm going to live there.