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102 Pearl 1 One thing I know for certain: that she was peerless, pearl who would have added light to any prince’s life, however bright with gold. None could touch the way she shone in any light, so smooth, so small – she was a jewel above all others. So pity me the day I lost her in this garden where she fell beneath the grass into the earth. I stand bereft, struck to the heart with love and loss. My spotless pearl. I’ve gazed a hundred times at the place she left me, grieving for that gift which swept away all shadow, that face which was the antidote to sorrow. And though this watching sears my heart and winds the wires of sadness tighter, still the song this silence sings to me is the sweetest I have heard – the countless quiet hours in which her pale face floats before me, mired in mud and soil, a perfect jewel spoiled, my spotless pearl. Draycott
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Draycott In a place where such riches lie rotting what will grow is a spreading of spices, blossoms of blue and white and red which fire in the full light, facing the sun. Where a pearl is planted deep in the dark no fruit or flower could ever fade: all grasscorn grows from dying grain so new wheat can be carried home. From goodness other goodness grows – so beautiful a seed can’t fail to fruit, or spices fail to flower fed by a spotless, faultless pearl. So I came to this very same spot in the green of an August garden, height and heart of the summer, at Lammas when corn is cut down with curving scythes. And I saw that the little hill where she fell was a shaded place showered with spices: pink gillyflower, ginger and purple gromwell powdered with peonies scattered like stars. But more than their loveliness to the eye, the sweetest fragrance seemed to float in the air there also – I knew beyond doubt that’s where she lay, my spotless pearl. 103

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102

Pearl

1

One thing I know for certain: that she was peerless, pearl who would have added light to any prince’s life, however bright with gold. None could touch the way she shone in any light, so smooth, so small – she was a jewel above all others. So pity me the day I lost her in this garden where she fell beneath the grass into the earth. I stand bereft, struck to the heart with love and loss. My spotless pearl.

I’ve gazed a hundred times at the place she left me, grieving for that gift which swept away all shadow, that face which was the antidote to sorrow. And though this watching sears my heart and winds the wires of sadness tighter, still the song this silence sings to me is the sweetest I have heard – the countless quiet hours in which her pale face floats before me, mired in mud and soil, a perfect jewel spoiled, my spotless pearl.

Draycott

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