It is a privilege to revisit places. So I thought recently, while standing by a certain tomb in Chichester Cathedral. Most Cathedrals inspire awe and reverence, but people have their favourite spots within them, and at Chichester mine is the tomb of Richard FitzAlan and his second wife, Eleanor of Lancaster, both of whom died in the 1370s.
You would imagine Richard, the 10th Earl of Arundel, to have been a pretty hard-boiled sort of chap. He was a warrior knight, and one of the three principal commanders at the 1346 Battle of Crecy, a crucial battle of the Hundred Years' War, in which the English annihilated the French forces, and also proved the superiority of the longbow, rather than the crossbow, as a military weapon.
And Richard accumulated such wealth along his martial way that he became King Edward III's chief financier; he is now considered to have been the 15th wealthiest person in history. Well, $118 billion in today's money would do that for you quite easily, I should think.
But Richard was not merely a materialist; he loved his second wife dearly, and proved it by engineering a papal dispensation in order to marry her, a measure necessary because, things being close and cosy in the 14th century, she was related to his first wife. Eleanor was not in her first youth, and was a widow, her first husband having been killed, conventionally enough, in a tournament.
Despite the inexorable march of time, however, Richard and Eleanor went on to have seven children, one of whom became Archbishop of Canterbury. Eleanor predeceased Richard, to his great sorrow: he died four years later, and left orders for a surprisingly modest funeral that matched hers, and for this joint tomb.
So there the marble figures lie, grey and blurred, and with an infinite capacity, I think, to touch the heart. The tomb was radical for its time, in the sense that Richard had decreed that his effigy should not be higher than Eleanor's; her figure also appears to lean towards his, and most moving of all, Richard's has one gauntlet removed, so that his bare hand holds that of his wife. Her feet rest on a little pet dog, his on a small lion.
It could easily escape one's notice, but there is a type-written poem pinned to the pillar nearest this long resting-place. It is by famous English poet, Philip Larkin, who seems to have been hard-boiled in his own way: he never married his long-time lover, Monica Jones, for example, and was intermittently unfaithful to her.
Various negative labels have been attached to him and his poetry. He has been described as having 'the saddest heart in the postwar supermarket', as having 'glum accuracy' about emotions, and as being a poet of 'lowered sights and diminished expectations'.
Yet Larkin considered this tomb unique, and recorded that he found it 'extremely affecting'. His feelings eventually found expression in a marvellous poem about time and change and enduring love, the love that is as strong as death. To him, the knight and his lady prove
Our almost-instinct almost true.
What will survive of us is love.
I have had this almost-instinct in a fumbling way for most of my life, and often, gratefully, see it confirmed.
Every Monday I take a bus trip to Kalamata. Every Monday I observe a black-clad older woman, a widow with a face expressive of sad resignation. Clearly on her way to a certain grave in the local cemetery, she struggles into the bus with at least two bags full of flowers.
And in Melbourne long ago, I heard of a woman who used to visit her husband's grave every week. Once there, she would give a report on her life during the last seven days: the conversation, she felt, did not have to stop simply because his corporeal presence was no longer with her.
I still talk to my own departed, especially to my mother, and I don't imagine the conversations will ever end. Not as long as I live. I would, if I could, write a poem about her.
But Larkin has done it for me, and for countless others.
Gillian Bouras is an Australian writer who has been based in Greece for 30 years. She has had nine books published. Her most recent is No Time For Dances. Her latest, Seeing and Believing, is appearing in instalments on her website.