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.