104

Draycott

I stood, caught in the chill grasp of grief in that place, clasping my hands there, seized by the grip on my heart of longing and loss. Though reason told me I should be still, I mourned for my poor imprisoned pearl with all the fury and force of a quarrel: the comfort of Christ called out to me but still I wrestled in wilful sorrow. The power and perfume of those flowers now filled my head and felled me, slipped me into sudden sleep on the spot where she lay beneath me. My girl.

2

In a while my spirit left the place where my body slept and dreamed below and by the grace of God began its journey to a landscape of marvels. Who knows where in the world it was, but I know there were cliffs that cleavered the sky and facing me a forest, studded with stones and rocks that seemed to the eye to be loaded with light, of a brightness beyond belief, a glitter like nothing I’d ever encountered – no human hand ever made a fabric half so finely arrayed.