We were sent a poem written by someone who visited Happy Valley on 11 November 2018 and have their permission to publish it anonymously:
11 November, 2018, Orkney
sit on a stone seat made by Frances
rest your arms on her spiral carvings
while you listen to the stream, quietly ecstatic
in stereoscopic parallel harmonies
flowing at your feet, from left to right
look through and above to trees
deflecting the blinding, long-shadow-casting sun
there are song shadows in the glistening grass
approach the abandoned dwelling
whose owner left his home to us
in a landscape of wind and stone
it has become Happy Valley
part of its roof is wildly turfed
part is solidly flagged in the island style
stepped and sealed it will survive another hundred years
enough to see out a few more wars, or perhaps just one
among the fallen and stacked branches
the remains of stone cists, an ornamented bridge
that leads to fields beyond where sheep wander
unconcerned at this day
how strange are our numbers
our time demarcated with myriad battle names
each with their designs and stratagems
their beginnings and ends, their filthy litter
1918: in the shell-shocked earth a soldier celebrates
the disappearing thunder
at eleven in the morning he is chasing
Swallowtails and Camberwell Beauties
picking larkspur and lilies of the valley
to press between the leaves of his memories