A visitation

Poem for the week, 27 November 2022

A visitation
Talgarth, Powys, Wales, United Kingdom

In a house near a hamlet near a village near here,
the White Lady walks, they say.

Even amid the braggadocio of drunk tongues,
voices hush for the tale in reverence,
in melancholy, in deference.

There is talk of a fire in a cellar
and a deliberately locked door.

There is talk of a miscreant cursed
with the head of a giant bull.

Stories hop across my synapses
as I lodge in the shadows of Lord Hereford’s Knob.

My imagination shifts the spirit
from lady to daughter to serving girl,
until a library clock lullaby of a dozen tiny bells.

In the noiseless night, the house inhales
the hamlet’s restless air.

Without waking or dreaming, I find attention upon me,
held in the power of an impartial curiosity.
Without seeing or hearing, I observe the observer,
bathed in the pale aura of a subconscious whisper.
Without moving, without feeling,
I am returned to my sleep, not permitted my senses.

Night drifts on.

After days after hours locals chat in the pubs,
pausing at cook’s clatter and caterwaul.

In a house near a hamlet near a village near here,
the White Lady walks, they say.

from Those Footsteps Behind (buy here)