Crematorium, 1960 – 2018

You should have been buried here
amongst the beans, the peas, the potatoes,
the rhubarb, spearmint and lavender,
the rose buds of hot afternoons
and the berries of winter cold,
in the land that you cultivated,
weeding and planting and hoeing
in the evenings long shadows of Spring.

Instead your ashes were spread
several miles from a desolate home,
left alone,
scattered on lawns and concrete
amid roses that nobody loves.

I would leave you posies of pansies
picked from your overgrown beds
where so little you planted survives
– if i was sure where you are

Clearing House

Wisteria and heliotrope tap upon the window

Cascading canopies of blooms obscure the lace of light

These antediluvian drifting dreams needs a careful cleansing

 

Wander though the rooms

Trail a finger here along the shelves

Leaving lines behind, each one holds a story

 

The old clock with a muffled tick marks time,

A perpetual metronome to music echoed in the hall.

Polished, worn piano keys, lid closed now and silent.

 

Take a yellow dust cloth, wipe it all away

Open wide resistant, creaking window frames

Shake the dust out, flying to the stratosphere.

 

Life is not for fragile vases, balanced near the fire.

Crematorium dust belongs beneath the roses

Sheltered in rich earth.

 

At the kitchen sink, elbow deep in suds,

I recall a rubaiyat, I sense reverberation

Somewhere in my memory, a penetrating message, from Arcadia.