A DREAM. A Poem By Bob Shepherd

Garway Church, Herefordshire, England.

I was but eight years old asleep in my bed
When an old man appeared hovering above my head
Wearing a long white robe and a great grey beard
Perhaps a warrior who I should have feared

Don’t be scared Robbie, never ever be scared
A voice strong but kind that he had shared

All of a sudden, he’s still and cold
Men place him into a casket, they look so bold
A big broad sword accompanies him to rest
As it’s laid along his body, centred from his chest

As he’s lowered into the ground I’m now hovering above he
But I’m just a wee boy in bed, inside a tenement in Dundee

I wake with a startle all sweaty and hot
Was it only a dream…or was it not?
So who is this man, and where is he laid?
Well, I’d come to find out at a place in the shade

I’m older now and decades have gone by
I’m driving in the countryside and I just want to cry
The scene laid before me is just like the dream
Welsh hills, a round church and graveyard is what I had seen

I pull the car over and jump a stone wall
I’m hovering over the grave site, I don’t want to fall
A simple stone slab with a long sword covers his grave
In the dream way back when, in the night I was brave

But now it’s not there, where could it be?
As I realize I’m a very long way
From my roots in Dundee

The church is now Norman, and no longer round
And the walls have Templar markings that I have just found
Stone taken from the old to build up the new
I move inside and rest up on a pew

I’m alone in the church, never ever be scared
As I go through the dream that I’ve never shared

When I look down the aisle I see a stone raised
It’s worn in the middle where the alter is praised

Hundreds of years stood on by feet
I make out a sword…simple yet neat
Is this the slab that covered his grave?
Was the old man a Templar, one of the brave?

I’ve never been religious
I tell my children and my wife
But now, Garway Church has a special place in my life