THE DEAD AMONG US
Dust floats and turns in shafts of filtered sunlight
as son, grandsons, friends carry in the coffin
of that lovely, gracious woman. Her husband,
now wheelchair-bound, weeps, and is comforted.
The Offices of the Dead begin. Outside
the fields and hedgerows of the parish shimmer.
The church door is wide because of the heat.
From my pew I can see through the lychgate
to where the undertaker’s men are chatting.
The hatchback of the hearse is open.
A tractor with a hay baler passes.
‘There is a green hill far away’, we sing,
and ‘In England’s green and pleasant land’.
All is movement, and flux – the dead among us
the only stillness.
