Simon Curtis
Fawsley
Though done for Easter with a vase
Of double-headed daffodils,
The nave is musty with disuse;
Dust coats box-pew, limestone sills.
On scutcheon, script and tarnished brass
On Francis, and Devereux, Knight,
On Jane Grey, wife, and daughter Anne,
Slants the snow-bruised April light.
The wind scuts panes, the half-thaw drips,
Distant management tractors go.
Big house and empty, rolling grounds
Belong to the Olney Timber Co.,
Where nesting rooks and woolly ewes
Recite response and antiphon
While lambs, new-born, slip in the snow.
Outside, life selfishly runs on,
As April, loud, occurs again.
To hell with titled, ended lives,
And history’s monumental weight!
Anonymous, a new year thrives.
So scutcheon, script and tarnished brass,
For Francis, and Devereux, Knight,
And Jane Grey, wife, and daughter Anne,
It seems indifference frames you right.
Year after year, around your nave
Insistent and instinctive cries
Ignore your gilded, trustful prayers,
Urge spring’s warm-hearted, heartless rise.
Page(s) 18
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