Story at a Wake

At my father's wake
I was happy with the crowds
except when it was hushed
for the eulogies

too little too late

though I choked back grief
the pity and silence
made my knees buckle
so I slammed a surface for support

afterwards his old cousin
shared a memory in a doorway

children playing in summer fields
the barley standing hot
swallow-skimmed and clicking with insects

the elder clan raucous and holy
sunday-gathered
in the house above Maggie Murphy's
six hen-pecking aunts
and their suited-men with braces

but up the top field
it was all laughter and sunlight
jam-jars and butterflies

and I can see the hot wind
fanning down the fields
a high wide sky
stretched out to Inishowen
over Eskaheen and Greenan
and the children dance in the heat
till they drop in their circles

and the August afternoon thickens
to a stillness of birdsong
and hymn-singing from the house

it was late tea-time
when they all started asking for him
hunting out rooms and out-houses
till they followed the children
up to the top field
going golden in the low sun

and there they found him
asleep in the careless ground
left out to blister under God's heaven
gone astray even then

too little too late

burnt into this old man's boy-memory
and now into mine.