passed on October 5, 2005 at NRGH. Born February 24, 1959.
On Foxhayes edge go scatter my ashes
Above the ground in sunlight splashes,
Where all about my...powdered bones
The trefoil weaves between the stones,
Where what I was feeds foxglove roots
And robust April parsley shoots.
Five miles or more from churchyard drab
Where, underneath a lettered slab,
The body that has served me well
Would bloat in clay pathetic shell.
At Foxhayes edge stop the grass
I’ll sense successive seasons pass
I’ll see the beeches overhead
Turn tangerine and rusty red
I’ll hear the sky-seen of their leaves
Wind-gossiping to younger trees.
Then, with the tall of blue-smoke dusk
I’ll settle in the rustling hush
Of brittle, sun-dried bracken stalk
To hear the spruce and larches talk
And see the lovers come and go;
Or later, when the New Year’s snow
Builds up in drifts below the hedge
Crisping the blades of dock and sedge
I’ll wait content, to stir the sleep
The hour the earliest violets peep.
For with them all the wood will rustle
Under the west wind’s old-maid’s bustle,
Lifting perhaps a speck of me
And bearing it, due south, to sea.