The sky bright. East wind strong. I rested under the boughs, the old maple barely growing.
How long had it been here? One hundred years.
Yet long before its seeding, the priory had dissolved into green grass under cattle lowing.
It was swept away in 1539 — a long, slow, forgetting 485 years.
Now the only trace, gentle green mounds in marshy boot clogging sward.
Yet in that nearby abandoned stone barn is that not a round topped doorway long bricked in?
A remnant perhaps of that long vanished priory, with the past a slender connecting cord.
Did religious once walk through it? Only ghosts now pass in.
Once all was busy. Premonstatensian bells summoning.
Now by me a flock of sheep in contented ignorance stand idly by.
There is no echo here of ancient chanting.
No rebuke they make to prayers dissolved with no hope to belie.
And I will wander on, thoughts astray.
Will others passing by give thought to quiet prayer long taken away?