I'm impatient today,
wasting hours with trivial pursuits.
Tomorrow is the funeral
and yesterday was his death.
His daughters can stop
being afraid of him.
His wife can stop
saying 'it's unfair'
and 'we'll keep going'.
His father knows the truth
of all the bad news now.
There is no hope.
His brothers organise
the rosary, the requiem,
the funeral, the wake ...
When all the business of death
is put away until next time,
like Christmas decorations,
they will cry, privately,
by themselves.
His little girls will get
too many presents on
their next birthday,
and their mother will
always cry on occasion.
But a young boy still
runs in my mind, stops
and looks at me with
his cheeky smile,
always with
a big green apple,
half eaten, in his hand.
(for my nephew Adrian Churack
|