Church Pece

A somewhat lean and mossy spire stands here,
with sombre face to toll long hours,
abroad and down a verdant bank,
it peers at proud church pece.

A frontier field of kindred fighting men,
a squabbling patch where true men died,
long, long forgotten under sod,
where wheeling kites patrol.

Now, old souls bend their broken weary backs,
strange weapons prod the ochre soil,
rod, pole and perch, they proudly tend
the graves of yester men.

So any warm idyllic sun drowsed eve,
the clink of hoe, the jag of rake,
rekindles, in the bonfire’s smoke,
a ghostly garrison.

Thin breezes whistle amidst bent rusting wires,
crow-scare flags stream from battle tents,
laid-up to rest are Cromwell’s men,
the skirmish dawn awaits

© Graham Sherwood 2008