Poem - Funeral

Funeral

For Alan Mackim

The arrival of the coffin is workmanlike

The breaking halting tribute voices hold

I look somewhere and see, really try.

The green vibrant moss

alive in the wood outside

bare branches, birdsong, nest, chatter.

At this gathering, connection

Hopping memory to mood.

A Draught of anger at life's achievement

As if we could rise above

this precise tightening futility

He was a man, real, regular, one.

Eulogy shaped a notice

to the difference he made, rehearsed

moving on, uplifted, without God.

Amongst the restless leaves,

cloying moss, damp, glistening, bacteria.

His furious energy his crucible

Man is water, gristle, sugar, electricity, no less.

At the gathering's end a surer voice

Not hope though, more measured

The bitter bark sits in the still squirrel’s mouth

I mark him, he me, together

we write the lines which will follow.

James Bullion v2 September 2013