Rievaulx

         

Good day, old friend, it's been

some time,
but like one
gone
almost blind, I feel I am home;
for your stones have owned, moments,

of my

prolific life

without question or promise

of warm

safe nights or moral comfort...

...and I have always known,
your walls
had eyes.

You remind me now
as I sit on your carvings
of basest cravings long fulfilled;

you recall heaven

spilled in sunshine, on stone,
and things and hands long since cast from
my bones, and as I
trace my fingers on your
crumbling face
my own reddens for a lack
of restraint, in what was once,
holy space,

and I lick my lips and mouth

that name
and remember how we sullied
your tunneled drains.

Our backs to your sand, as the
swallows
flew over,
surrounded by moss and daisies
and clover, with filthy water
at our feet...
I see,
only now,

 - the first time I have been here since -

that as beautiful
as we thought
our act of defiance,
and freedom,
to be,
our supposed, sublime serenity
(and imposition)
was nothing here -
for it could not compete
with thee.
   

      

Written on a Leeds Savage Club Sketchers' Excursion to the stunning ruins of Rievaulx Abbey, North Yorkshire...