Eyam

Isolated plague village of local stone. Rosy red rash and a cross on the door. October Monday, quieter than death, shut up in its house, locked from the inside. Fifteen months of self-sacrifice. Painted wood cut into the shape of a boy kicking a ball. New cars parked in the new Glebe Park. Dismal saplings, cobbled and gravelled local amenities and skies of brushed blue. Sobbing in the grassy delf. The streetlights are on in the day for those buried in the garden, buried in the fields. Here comes the passing bell.
Once for a child, twice for the mother, three times father. Green plaques outside all the cottages. Jane lost twenty five relatives. Bird tables, hosepipes, hanging baskets, net curtains. Nine Thorpes all died. Road cones and rock gardens, "Cyril Vernon Read worked here during the war and came to the love the village". Come and see an old custom revolving every carnival day. Autumn leaves gather on the ground mesh around the empty stocks. Hollowed like the boundary stone. Standing green water, coaches and cars, parking this way. Honey Buzzard. Painted plate.

Where we made the fire of branch and briar, the spot still shows as a burnt circle. The way the hawk always returns to the hand, the rosy red rash has spread over the land. Halloween masks in the post office window, a circular wall in a parallel meadow. It's, a very, heavy, visitation...

The "most hated person in Eyam" scratched out their name in the bus stop. Car tax and Cornettos, sunflowers and pantomime read-throughs, full-fat milk and well dressings. "Take a trip down memory lane", pear drops and cola cubes. The deserted car park,
one corner huddled with bins and recycling. Learn about local history. Have you paid and displayed? 1665 split over two floors,
cobwebs and polite notices. A dead bat on the floor sliced in two by a bike wheel, a line of torn fur with its insides out. We all fall down. Harvest festival shopping bags fill the altar, tins of spam and marrowfats. "Real history" in the visitors book. The skeleton dances in the mural. Returning to the National Speed limit. Skyrocket foam flower. Heritage stasis remains.

Up Riley Lane in a field of ponies, Derbyshire leaks through the trees. Weathered grave stones and a sinking tomb, scuffed turf and a bundle of dead flowers, hooped in the dry stone fold. A circlular wall of reverence, quarantined and separate, sacred to the memory of seven dead in eight days. Heritage stasis remains.