this is the way of it:
our death.
death mirrors life;
the casket frames the person dead.
we’ll miss you.
we loved to look upon your face.
peek at your wild hair.
that head was party
to a great intelligence.
now you are gone old friend.
now we must involve ourselves-
smile into a coffin.
they made you grip
a spray of flowers,
petals touched by dew,
fading by the hour,
as we are touched,
gazing down at you:
by means of this eulogy,
we speak to say nothing.
we love you.
sitting in a carriage
of a train moving north
is to fixate on thoughts
savaged with regret
and tiredness.
each station
we pull into, we are forced
to recollect, move on again,
all attains a pitch
which mounts
almost to violence.
troubles, guilt, pains,
old faces wax and wane,
until we reach our station.
we poor travellers alight
and wait at barriers until
the clack-clack of ebbing life
echoes into silence.
a cold wind cuts our faces
in the sudden dark.
venus and jupiter,
forgotten, gleer
on the horizon:
we are in a heavy place
of cruelty and death.
the gates open:
but just when
my soul is exiting,
a baby's perfect face
appears before me:
his mother him watching,
the child, asleep, eyelids pulsing,
urged gently over the crossing.
i could taste failure
even in my whisky
watered down to nothing.
her clothes smelt disgusting
her face was dirty, puffy, red.
she lit a cigarette and stared.
you are circumspect.
what? i answered,
not knowing what she meant.
you circle your subject
to get an idea of it:
you circle because
your prey is full of strength;
or you circle,
because the animal you hunt
is almost dead.
which am i you think?
i should have answered
in the positive,
but said:
i want to know
if there is anything left.
at once, her eyes
were filled with hatred.
i think that is a fair request,
i added.
what more could be said?
this was not an actress-
no one cared.
as a journalist,
i was being honest:
my readers want gossip-
hagiographic nonsense-
few would wonder
at the depths
of this woman's conscience:
what fears she conquered,
what knowledge
wrested from despair.
what has been given me,
all that i have tried to be,
but not am. all this ties me
to a feeling i am trying
to withstand:
that to define me i must
be unplanned, defying
my own sense of self,
my dreams of who i am.
over both their faces,
a great spreading smile:
for each has seen the other.
two lonely points in time,
once forlorn and bare,
now flourish in love's care.
soon hands and lips are there,
and how their greetings
echo in sweet air !