in a field next to the village
carbon dating it back to many centuries before.
She departed this earth at an early age,
I speculate whether she bore children
who wept with grief on a star-filled
medieval night. What was her name?
I wonder if the long dead woman came
to the Norman church where on this Sunday
the choir sings as angels descend.
I picture a melancholy ghost drifting
down the village streets now choked with cars
and hope she experienced moments of joy
in an era when life was brief and brutal,
skull molested after so many years
but for her there is no more pain or tears.