With wind soughing in the churchyard yews,

lichen marking the gravestones of labourer

and landowner, Saxon foundations,

mediaeval tower, sunlight fitful

through worthy Victorian stained glass,

a brass plaque for ‘those who gave their lives’,

the wheezy organ, the orotund Order

for the Burial of the Dead, ‘I am the

resurrection and the life…’ the vicar’s

gentle eulogy of the deceased,

one is almost tempted to wish God

were in his heaven where ‘we shall all

be changed…in the twinkling of an eye’

but common sense prevails.