Some days I reincarnate you,
the long dead, tethered to this place
by the dial of the bell tower roof. 
I imagine you walking amongst the grass
that grapples old headstones,
or the dry pathways; your steps echo
like the spatter of heavy rain.
I am tongue tied by a tumult of words.
This should be a kind place, but we are detached
like the winding road that separates
church from yard. Along its incline,
perspective always gathers to a blind point.
 
And really, what would I say?
I could tell you of the children perhaps,
how this one or that had done well,
their loves and ambitions; but I feel
you would be listening to the sky.
Our words would meander like dust
in a shaft of sun, never meeting,
but falling like sediment, inexorable,
a fine film burying an age gone by.
 
There is a sturdy pathos in the names
marked out in sunlit lichen.
Time gives subtle kicks. My memories
degrade like rust, so I look for you
amongst the flocks of flowers left by the lost
and the half-kept borders;
it is remarkable what the eye believes.
A glimpse of you would help me through this;
better still, sit with me and listen
to the blackbird in the undergrowth,
shaking melancholy off the leaves.