The Visitor

Recently found, a grave and vital script, A grimy scrap of paper, with message profound; That rested undiscovered deep in a crypt - St Noolan’s Church, Wold Burton, where t’was found. So what had happened all those years ago? To father? To son? In the church yard? In the tavern? ******* The sun now sets behind the village church, A bitter wind so chill begins to blow; In front he sees the drooping silver birch, With memories of long, so long, ago. A gas lamp dimly lights the muddy path, The rooks now scream and shriek above his head; They screech and wheel about and show their wrath, Their screams now fill his mind with fear and dread. He stumbles through the mud with head bowed low, What bitter memories now afflict his brain? What saw he there in churchyard years ago? What wicked powers that be, could so ordain? So cruel his life so long ago, so grim, Now he pauses - his mind in such a daze; So fearful, confused and stunned as thoughts grow dim, And then he sees the tavern through the haze. The door’s ajar, a pause, then in he creeps, He finds the dust so thick, the air so foul; A chilling shuffle he hears - a floorboard creeks, The gas lamp flickers, he sees a hateful scowl. Assailed is he – by voice so creaking and hoarse, He sees a figure so old, so bent and frail; A toothless grin; a face so gnarled and coarse, What grim and dreaded thoughts his mind impale…. He stumbles up the stairs with head bowed low, What sad and bitter ghosts still haunt his brain? What saw he here so many years ago? What wicked powers that be, could still pertain? A grimy passage, a living hell recalled, Then through a door, and in a room so cold; On a mattress bare a man lay sprawled, Bitter and scared he feels, with fears untold. The man so wizened and lean, his face so pale, A man so close to death and in despair; ‘Tis his father he hears so desperately rail, As up he looks through dirty tangled hair. “My boy, my boy! Why did you run?” “Where did you go?” he gasped in great dismay; “For years it’s been, but now my life is done,” At that he closed his eyes and back he lay.’ 23 November 2018 I have never found the church of ‘St Noolan’ and the village of ‘Wold Burton’ in East Yorkshire, and begin to believe they do not exist. (Although I have found a ‘Noolan St’ in Mount Gambier, South Australia, but I feel this doesn’t count….). How about ‘Burton Wold’? I could find only a wind farm atop a hill at Burton Wold. I wonder too, whether the son and the father in the poem ever existed. So you may wish to sit back and consider….. Ah well…….