May is a lovely month, with lilacs and hawthorn in bloom, and buttercups and other wild flowers blooming in abundance. But for me, it is a lonely month. Three of my immediate family are gone, father, mother and sister. I rarely remember the anniversaries of their deaths, but as two of their birthdays were in May, I think of them every day and try to have a quiet time to think and remember. This poem is for my father, the first to go.
Grey church humped in dusk
We huddle, linked
Wispy rain-curled fringes
Cold fingers
Avoid the avid glances
Of the neighbours
Here is the hearse
The priest in white, hand aloft
Accustomed to the rites
Calls him Gerard – but
His name was Jeremiah
Strange cousins
Twice and thrice removed
Clamour to shake hands
And kiss
Anticipating whiskey
He’d have hated this.