Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

We stood by the low cemetery wall. The stony ground fell away to the dry bed of a stream, and abandoned almond trees threw up withered branches in attitudes of despair. Beyond, a hillside rose high and steep, patches of scrub giving way to outcrops of grey limestone rock, arrayed like dragons’ teeth.

In its desolation that spot held me spellbound, and though on holiday and presently shorn of his dog collar, I hoped that David might also be spiritually moved.

‘Pity about the mistral,’ I shouted above the roar and whistle of the wind that in those parts often blew after a storm, leaving everywhere more parched and thirsty than before. Tall dark cypresses sighed and creaked with each fierce and chilly gust. Tombs and headstones wallowed in a waving sea of flaxen grass. David’s wife Jessica drew her shawl about her.

‘Can we move on.'

We stepped down into the chapel. The heavy oak door slammed shut behind us and the sudden silence was awesome. A few wooden benches were drawn up before the bare white altar, and the bluish light from one small east window fell like a tear upon the flagstones. We breathed in the smell of cold stone.

‘This place gives me the creeps,’ Jessica said.

Finally I wanted to show them the large wrought iron crucifix that hung from the wall above my fireplace, giving the room a real touch of distinction. I told them I found it thrown onto the cemetery dump. It must have marked somebody’s resting place, and I wondered if their troubled spirit some- times came looking for it.

Jessica drained her wine glass. ‘David, it’s time we made a move.'

She stuck her head out of their car window. ‘We’ll pray for you,’ she cried, as the mistral carried them away in a cloud of dust.