Hollows

Today, I found a hidden grave, or perhaps out-of-the-way would be a better way of putting it.
It was on my run down through the river woods that I spotted the gleaming white saucers of birch bracket fungus, on a dead tree stump quite far into the trees. So, stepping over brambles and under branches I went to have a look at them. Once, there had been a tall silver birch tree there, set to one side of a small glade. Now it had fallen and was undergoing its transformation back to its elements, with the help of its beautiful fungi. When I turned back to the path, I noticed a corner of dark slate sticking out from under the dead leaves.  Curious, I brushed back some layers of soft leaf-mould to uncover a small plaque lying on the ground. I could see there were some engraved letters and with some difficulty, traced them out.
Twenty years ago, a still-born baby had been named, and then buried there.

‘Who never made it to this world.
We know you would have loved this place
Love Mum and Dad’
 
I stood quietly thinking of the love and grief of two parents who had cared enough to find a place of beauty, just the kind of secret place a child would have found entrancing, in a hollow under a sweep of birch branches.

Twenty years on, and both the grief and the place had been transmuted, tree and child softly sinking back into earth and the back of the memory. No less loved, but life going on to fill the moments.
I made my way back to the path and ran on through the trees to the open lane, and the first watery gleams of sunlight piercing through the cloudy sky.