The Great War had not shaken

them from their faith

had not deflected them

from the path they had followed

more assuredly since the excitements

of the latest Methodist Revival

if anything the conflict

and its aftershock had helped them

make sense and come to a sort

of understanding of the new world order

that now came looking for them

in their previously unknown collection

of fields barns and cottages

they still respected the word

and feared God's judgement

remembering past transgressions

while processing current discomforts

there had been talk

in the vestry

the village shop

on the lanes

and at the gates

that something hadn't been quite right

that day in the first hopeful July

of the new century

that had become all too familiar

her father twenty years older

than his bride was rumoured

to be her cousin also

on the morning of her own big day

she was satisfied that the dress

she’d fashioned represented a good fit

after the alterations she’d made

as her baby grew within

placing a tiara on her high forehead

she left the dark warm indoors

of the home of her family for the last time

as an unmarried woman

in the yard she walked coyly

but purposefully through

a phalanx of neighbouring men

and beneath their raised shotguns

framed by whitewashed walls

and the fallow orchard behind

waiting for her in the chapel

where her parents had wed

was the Italian-looking young man

who would soon leave her for the sea

and return to visit when he could

during the next six years of war

each time rekindling a passion

that spanned an ocean