All morning you’d been tracing names
Probing through lichen into stone
Impatient for the noonday sun
To show the words you did not know.
You take your rest, and in the heat
You see where grass that grew on stone
Is yellow now. You dig beneath.
And you can almost read it plain
Fresh as the day when it was laid:
HERE LYES THE BODY
OF IAMES C__SER SON
(Crosier? You cannot quite make out the name
But there are Croziers in the parish yet)
TO IC AND KI WHO
DECEASED 6 OF AUGUST
ANNO 1666
Though it is plain, they carved a sign
A symbol of their grief: a heart
Two arrows and an oak-leak staff
In false relief. And underneath…
Sweep back the earth
Here is the verse
That generations in between
Have never seen
But whispered nonetheless:
HIS DAIES WAS SHORT
THE LONGER IS HIS REST
GOD TAKES SOONEST
WHOM HE LOVETH BEST
Jenny Brien
Image Credit: Ballinamallard Historical Society
