Another mourning

 

The service held, the recently bereaving

Their candles lit and said and silent prayer

A drawn out day has crossed to dreaded evening

A requiem for those no longer there 

 

The service ends, releasing nervous grievers 

Relieved perhaps of grief or pained regret

Memories reawakened now revealing

What over hectic days try to forget 

 

Extinguished not by war but too much living

Adrift from life at home or hospice room

Or taken quick in tragic unbelieving 

The good and bad both dying oh too soon

 

The evening now envelops church door leavers

Reserved half smiles, slight guilty thank you nods 

The vicar knows but curbs his inner preacher 

Our fallen ways and unbelieved in gods

 

A family huddle, close, enclose the grieving

Their slow, respectful, sometimes faltering steps

Across the churchyard, clammy ground uneven

Falling into faith defying depths

 

They face the grave, fake candles light the evening

A costly faded flower name spelt out

A life reduced to trinkets, pots and peonies

A tableau on the mossy grave-yard mound

 

The group consoled, are wordlessly departing

Accepting now their own unspoken course

Through churchyard gates, rust coated, old and leaning

A witness born from duty or remorse 

 

The homage ending, mourners disappearing

Alone now, in half light, in despair 

She’s caught between remaining here and leaving 

Of who she's lost, the others unaware.

 

Begun after the memorial service at High Offley Church Autumn in 2013. Edited November 2020 and again July 2023. I’ve struggled a lot with this.