Two Poems by Sally Evans

At Briggflatts Meeting House

Inside History

Small hall built like a ship
in the heyday of wooden ships,
panelling, banisters held firm
by master workmanship no longer known
fired by the need to float a country’s sons
rails and galleries, staircase, gates,
boxed seating, open seating,
pillars and pews all carpentered,
reliant on the strength of oak
that lasts and lasts through centuries.
A stone-clad hideout under fells
no government could better,
bids us board this ship of time,
come inside history.

At Basil Bunting’s grave

Beneath the rising brae
by that great sycamore
that marks a boundary’s
reason it is there,
some ten feet steep
to base of copper beech,
as dark as leaves will go,
touching red in nature,
where old, matched, simple stones
step down among wild flowers,
sorrell and bluebell, grasses
cover the bones that sleep,
and look, a tree of words
grows from the poet’s feet.