Three Poems by Rebecca Watts

Victoriana

They bought six plots
when SISTER FELL ASLEEP. Tragedy
begets morbidity.

Two graves, with space
for three in each. TOGETHER
THROUGHOUT ETERNITY.

When MOTHER died,
she was laid beside — age
to balance beauty —

with a second
polished marble heart
inscribed IN SACRED MEMORY.

FATHER tended
to both with care — brought flowers
each anniversary —

but found a way
to persevere, and never
seemed melancholy.

When his time came
he shocked us with his wish to be
burned: contrary.

We buried the urn
at the foot of Mam’s grave, and tried
not to think about loyalty.

Now us three boys
have married and moved, no one
visits the cemetery

so the matter
of who should lie with whom
has faded away, thankfully.

And the resting
bones shall be left alone, oppressed
by the good earth only.

Above St Deiniol’s

’Tis only the splendour of light hideth thee

The denizens of St Deiniol’s go undisturbed all night.
Vibrations of footsteps/pawpads intrude not on their sleep.
No hunter bothers to enter the stern precinct where no prey scurries.

Baked in floodlight, the grey gravestones are sentries for themselves alone:
leaning stones; arched stones; stones sinking into nettles, lichen-spattered;
stone crosses weighted with stone anchors and stone chains.

You’d say not even the dark air moved, except that the big bell tolls each quarter,
pushing its censure through the hours to dawn — this time, this time, this time,
gone, gone, gone — nudging you closer to everyone who’s gone before,

down there, into the lithe, damp earth. And it goes on —
earth, earth, earth, earth — until, at last, the first blackbird stirs,
summoning you, ushering you into the light.

The Garden

I daren’t turn my back
on the yew hedge — not since

a squirrel shot in, full-
tilt, and the white cat,

which mewed as it rubbed
against my ankles, shot in after.

I heard the squirrel chirp —
war cry? surrender? —

and I’ve heard the phrase
she’s a hunter

and of the gifts laid in fealty
on doormats and pillows.

I want no gifts today,
no half-murdered plaything

dropped panting and blinking
at my sandalled feet.

I walked into this
garden in innocence.

Rebecca Watts is the author of two poetry collections, The Met Office Advises Caution (2016) and Red Gloves (2020), and editor of Elizabeth Jennings: New Selected Poems (2019), all published by Carcanet.