In a Dublin Graveyard James Corben, Year 13
Reculver by Jeremy Ullman, Year 10 As I stand beneath the stone walls of Reculver, Each towering height empty and dead, I think of residents long-gone and hollowed
I am lost in a Dublin Graveyard And suddenly I am falling faintly,
and faintly failing into the fading family Photograph. Sepia-coloured souls drift painlessly into the ash-land; I am sure I never knew so many. In the graveyard I reach into my bag for something to lay at The memory of his grave-meaning demeanour Grave-grey. Bible-grey. Never-seen again in grey or blue. In a way, he always looked so otherworldly reflected in the immaculate half-sheen of the Red Bronco that he could never quite pay off; I remember reaching into the glove compartment and flipping through that well-worn copy of Dubliners, breathing in the must and dead skin cells. I am here, lost, in A Dublin graveyard, with the half of my beloved’s heart that never did quite leave, and in one sense I am dead as Milton is dead; in another, I feel as painfully alive as his poor daughters, reading those alien symbols to a fading spirit, Desperate in the belief that those never-fading lines of prose could tether him here For just another fleeting, Joyce-reading, life-affirming moment. Indeed, my Love is general all over Ireland, and I feel myself fading from this cobble-paved graveyard. And taking my rightful place beside him In that old family photograph.
And headstones forgotten, lost crowns in my head. The beach lies below. Mud and struggling strands Climb over the rocks, and the long-gone reaching cold hands Of Reculver. Others do not tarry here, None but the wind. And the falling white sleet, and the battering rain, Like diamonds over the empty expanse Of Reculver. The stark shores and the stone walls, Save the glimmer and shine, which they keep for themselves,
Droplets, waiting once more for dawn To paint themselves in the colours of day. As I stand in the ruins of Reculver.
CREATIVE WRITING
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THE ALLEYNIAN 713
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