Poetry
Brian's Burial (the Gardener)
You dug a wishing well once, and kept digging
deep and deeper still until you found water.
Now, finally, a hole you didn't have to
dig
Foundation of your future -
Six feet deep at least, "T" square edges
Cut clean, neat, timber-shuttered walls
A heap of displaced earth.
The damp green astro-turf like fresh-cut
grass from lawns you tended
shaping your rectangular grave.
Six black coffin bearers standing
over you this November day.
Just as they lowered you down
It poured, and we, eyewitnesses stood dripping,
reminded -as if by some jocular muse-
Of the wet days you'd worked through.
Now, curly hair combed, hands clean
(as they never were in life! -your brother said)
You lie, silent in the cold, dark earth
The ground you worked, your fitting tomb
A place of pilgrimage for well-wishers.
© Sophie Brown 21st November
2000