Ruin

Roofless now, she is dressed just in a cloud
that is gentle; wispy, billowing like soft smoke.
She does not stand, she nestles,
cwched in the cwm beside the river’s course,
a simple cottage in a spiritual place.
Her sky is wider now; its blueness deeper
and generous in its magnitude
for such a lone and humble dwelling.
Rows of golden buttercups line her ancient path,
sheep-bitten but still emboldened with their jewel-bright glow.
Solid and warm, the greystone of the walls remain
and I am drawn to touch, tune in and just to listen
for a voice.
But all is quiet.
There is no frenzy here as her silence is the truthful kind,
like being in a chapel without its sermons
or a church without its hymns,
I stand alone and sense
just a plain and wholly perfect attitude of Peace.


Cait O’Connor