The Last Friend

He stood at the back, and looked around

The church, not even full,

There wasn’t a face he recognised

From his far off days at school,

He thought of Jim in the coffin there

Who had reached his end of days,

Then hid his head and the tears he shed

As they sang a hymn of praise.

 

The congregation had filed on out

To attend a hurried wake,

‘I hope she finished the Lamingtons,’

Said the grandson, Edward Drake.

‘We’re lucky to have a wake at all

For they’ve been divorced for years,

I couldn’t believe she’d put it on

But she even cried real tears!’

 

He didn’t follow the mourners down

But turned away on his own,

He hadn’t anything much to say

To the strangers Jim had known,

He’d said goodbye to his only friend

To the last one that he had,

The rest had gone on ahead of him

And the thought of that was sad.

 

What do you do in an empty world

When the last of those you knew

Is lying under a grassy knoll,

Covered in morning dew?

When your wife has gone to an early grave

And your son has gone, too soon,

While a daughter’s taken in childbirth

Early one Sunday afternoon.

 

He walked and walked til the sun went down,

To the sound of an inner voice,

‘Why have you stayed around so long?’

‘My fate gave me little choice!’

His mind filled up with the sounds of them

Who had laughed and joked in the past,

They said, ‘We knew it would come to this,

But someone had to be last!’

 

He wandered out in his garden then,

So dark that he couldn’t see,

But every one of his friends was there

Hiding behind each tree,

They called and chaffed in the darkness that

Their time had been way back when,

‘We’re quite content with the lives we led,

Why don’t you join us, Ben?’

 

But Ben sits still in his empty house

While a candle gutters there,

He thinks he’ll go when the flame goes out

Sat in his easy chair,

He doesn’t think of the future now

For his life was lived in the past,

And his mind is filled with memories

Til the Lord takes him, at last.

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[KWP]

awwww ... poor Ben!! This certainly stirs up some emotion ... I remember talking with my father in law who is now fit as a fiddle and well into his eighties and he would tell me of how he looks at life through different eyes than mine because he is more than twice my age .. I contemplated that for a very long time ... still do in fact ... but learning to just 'be' ... in my book life is ever flowing, this made evident by all of Ben's friends and family calling him so to the 'other side' ..

it seems very 'old style' for some reason this read ... reminds me of my dad ... which is a wonderful thing indeed x x

[A Soap Mess Stories]

Another great tale David...

[Claire in VA]

I wonder, once in awhile, if I will become like Ben.
Then I just tell myself not to worry about it and
live life to its fullest because I may very well go
before my loved ones. Just my thoughts. I can't
critique you. You are a master poet. :)
~Claire, waaaaay over here in the hot summer

[Cliff Rhodes]

Wow! I thought I was flashing back to the memories of all my passed on relatives in this read. I have very perfect mental recordings of all of them, all passed on but one of the older ones. There have been so very many funerals and obituaries, as I am 63.

I really love it when people correct me or give me advice, so I am assuming you might like it too.

In the last paragraph: I would use "While a candle [glitters] (not gutters) there,

Don't know what the mind set is here, just a preference. Beautiful poem, really moving. Thanks for writing it.

[David Lewis Paget]

Thanks Cliff, but the word 'gutters' was used very deliberately to indicate a candle that is rapidly melting with the wax streaming down - (dictionary meaning), but also in another sense, a flame that is sputtering.

[Marie]

Ah--if a candle "glittered" it might show hope. "Gutters" means hope is dying...

[Marie]

THat's a terribly sad and pessamistic poem. Ben shouldn't be living in the past with his memories. He should be out makine the most of his present and building a future.

That's what my father did till the day he died.

[Avinash]

While reading this piece I felt like being one of the ghosts from his past watching him over and that is the immense power of narration.