I parked the volvo at two am

cut the engine on the old 760

the November night closed in.

Outside, the air at Borley was fresh

a light wind stirred by the blunted church

 

only hedges and drives, bungalows

where the rectory had been

and the still extant lodge. 

 

The Victorian pile razed by fire  before the war

i'd read the stories

of a ghostly nun, mysterious lights

teleportation  footsteps

the flying brick photographed.

 

Planchette readings by men in tweeds

by candlelight in the library.

"help me!" appearing on simple walls

records kept of the unexplained,

the press reports,  famous visitors,

books written,  often discredited

but still......

the night was chill

I stood unchallenged.

Suffolk fields lay back

that spread to Essex

a stream somewhere hidden.

 

I fancied I heard by the locked up church

a flapping noise persistent in the holy ground.

(Often the organ heard inexplicably playing a forlorn sound.

 

Loonies and scaries would come in the summer

the day in July when the nun would walk.

A photograph of an original gate was what

I took back, vowing to return

while there was still much to learn.