What is now a pasture and once a garden
Unfolds from a hilltop hedgerow divide
On the back of flattened dewy darts
Slumped sick by shanks of heifer hide
Till mangled earth set baked to harden
Marks where thirsty cattle bide
Attended by two perished carts
And fencing where the reed bed starts
Except one place of history's pardon;
A ruined wall completes the side.

What is now a ruin and once a home
Finds purpose since in keeping back
The wanton creatures, glumly rapt,
From drowning by the guide they lack
As all those lost at heart do roam
Alone, regardless of the pack,
With milky eyes and muscles sapped
While some sleep calm in lamp light trapped
By a crumbling headstone in the loam,
Its ivy stripped, its mortar cracked, its colour black.

What has now turned black and once was green
By means of a covering common hedera
Regales the past and sacredly stands
Untouched, unkempt, on a mouldy Terra
Yet when not visible can still be seen
In the animals’ chimera
As ever on the worship brands
And ever will till one commands
The wiping of this scene
To boldly build another era.