The sun is fighting to break through an early mist to allow weak shadows to fall onto grass

Between the silent granite sentry posts that hold the stories of my new adopted friends.

The stones carry names etched in mottled script telling of lives cut short or lived long

And I stop to talk with them as I patrol in the morning with my dog to witness their family.

Susan Cooper 1878, Sarah Cooper 1907, James Cooper 1924. Do you remember the tears

On those days with heads bowed and all vowing to return year after year, but never did.

Here lies Joan Blackman, she married Jocelyn who dies in 1942, his body left in El Alamein

To be mourned alone. Did Joan hug that memorial blasted by heat and sand, and weep?

The Fulfords, eccentric, and as a family as ancient as yews show pride in their stone ranks

Awaiting pewter pots to be filled and as they wait as I read their names and whisper to them.

They will forgive the silent padding of paws, its inquisitiveness to smells and our trespass

Above the green roofs that keep them safe, but I know they can hear the morning start.

Crows, now protected, over populate tall firs, cawing and screeching, to announce the day

To no-one, as no-one will come to say good morning, did you sleep well or how are you?

Our morning round is done, we tread lightly, leaving just shoe prints that sink into damp earth

As evidence that we came to speak of your name again, but only my dog and I hear.