Anne Bronte Poem by Sally Evans

The southern moors
slope down to Scarborough.
She watches Eastern seas.
She's heard of Whitby Abbey, north
along this rocky coast
she finds so healing, alien
from claustrophobic family,
knows of the ancient Lyke Wake Walk
that spills to sea at Ravenscar
where landlocked dead find rest
each in their century.

She's ill already,
worn like soft rock, waves raised
and dashed by hysterical kin.
How could she fear to die?
A simple life was not her fate.
She's already written books, shaped
by that home education
which she now escapes.
Like her mother she'll lie
in near peace. Asked to give her all
to a wild order of siblings,
she hopes for no progeny,
craves no love. She is like
the East Coast, patient, still.

Scarborough swallows her.