À deux

(for Nicholas Phillipson)

           

I meant to say I won’t be there

with you, mutual senses reaching as,

with head bent back,

we traverse a lofty peacock-blue and ivory painted ceiling.

 

You won’t have thought before

about this – but I did,

side-by-side, à deux on a wooden pew

to celebrate a life or all life,

referred to as much the same on these occasions.

 

I meant to say I won’t be there

and neither will you be actually,

here at the Chapel of Remembrance

now wrapped up for the day

to obey that inscription inscribed on the window;

 

Night has come and there will be no more work.

No more work. No more dark outfits.

No more dead bodies, infernal preoccupations.

No more sadnesses, no more exhumation,

prising open our hard-fought entrancement of love.

 

That sip of water from a carafe

lay-readers and relatives reach for

will by now have been spirited away.

Tunes by Schubert, Ed Sheeran will have muted.

Best of all, there will be no fresh casket.

 

Although I won’t be there and neither will you,

I meant to say how much

I was already thinking about all of you here

dealing with the future.

I know you were expecting me to participate.

 

So the best I can assure those of you

caught up in that transposition,

when with sense-consciousness, we look around and see

elements of the living sensed back,

ready to transmit like a glass of water or much admired song,

 

when voiceless, joined feelings resonate

under a peacock-blue and ivory painted ceiling,

would be how I unaccountably understand this

about every single one of you here at some level

and however ridiculously.