they left their passion here
in garnet schist and granite,
crazy migmatite
of marbled black and white:
hot scramblings of the pluton.
What's left of monks is bony, hard
to see: a grassy field
where horses crop and starlings pop
and bubble natter-songs
of seed and insect, feeding
over buried walls.
Cobble-flocks and boulders
Cluster; mortared stone
reliques tell crustal stories deeper
than our poor humanity.
Churches pass and minsters fall:
the pagan flints remain.
Tim