Afterwords

i.  In Attendance

From the boundary of cypresses,

the cassock-wings of a hang-glider

minister closer and closer.

On the chapel path, a fresh droplet 

of black oil from the hearse

has put out and lost a human form, 

only minutes since delivery

of the diminutive, beribboned box.

Beyond the hedges

round each raked and numbered bed,

the town, the world, resumption,

stand back for blotch-red grief, 

a couple’s stumbling timelessness.

Nervously, sympathy gets ready, 

to be useful, with useless arms.

ii.  A Small Do

Engine capacities and

a couple’s performing dog

keep the conversation going;

so does someone’s child

at her elbow,

with a noisy toy;

or another,

with its absence, still.

More Camembert?

Yes, please,

to plug the holes

in her pretence,

until, on the drive home,

the wintry sun

breaks through the mist,

and a perfect Turner sky,

with its therapeutic banality,

graces a silence she can bear.

.