Gill Rennard
Fountains Abbey
That February morning gulls like silver specks of steel
swerved and darted beneath marble sky,
their shrieks mingling
with silent snowflakes that fell
reluctantly onto moist ground
and were lost.
Later, we dipped into the valley
and into the abbey grounds,
mist draped across the landscape,
the gulls too were lost.
The admission fee includes water gardens,
Georgian style, with neat lawns and ponds,
concealed by evergreens (no reductions in winter)
speckled with statues in bronze.
Even the snowdrops are a tourist attraction,
clustered together, hanging their heads in silent lament.
Through planned, positioned trees,
round the next bend,
we stumbled upon the ruins,
still and lifeless, shrouded in mist.
Through the arch,
past space - once washrooms - are stairs
leading to nowhere. A little imagination
and the ghosts of monks in solemn procession ascend,
their lives complete.
On, past the frugal remains of a kitchen
and a refectory carpeted in grass,
a chapel, roofless
and still haunted by silence.
Nothing stirs
until a voice, heavy with American,
drifts through the ruins, questioning a companion,
unashamedly hungry for quaint English culture,
a past to cling to.
An English couple pass through.
Children full of life run among dead stones.
Lacking respect, they yawn at history
and continue playful pretence,
while we, grumbling at the first spots of rain,
head back towards the car.
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