Kelmscot Churchyard
where you lie
northman
your grey gable
rugg’d with lichen
roof raised above
no walls,
soul’s shelter
from the sky’s bluster,
and there underneath it
rests
that restless body
rootless among roots
Through the mouth and nostrils
sprouts greenery
or rime glitters
in the great beard
Desire
like ivy on a gravestone
binds him to this one place
like grass threading
the bluebells and the cowslips
braids him into it –
this holy place,
made holier by
his love of it
by his love