As I write this, a bonfire is being lit in the garden next door,
while above, planes filled with strangers I will never meet
are flying to places I will never visit. Tonight is Guy Fawkes night,
and rockets fail in glorious technicolour on their journey to the moon.
I am wearied of writing elegies for friends who have gone too soon.
News of a sudden death pulls the earth from under us.
Unprepared, we are crushed and bewildered.
But when dying is a slow and painful inevitability
we look on helplessly and hope for miracles.
We either choke on prayer, or rage and refuse
to imagine a future without them.
I am wearied of writing elegies, it seems unfair.
And this is one I thought I’d never have to write.
Midnight now, and still a smell of sulphur in the air.
The bonfire has been put out, and for a few hours at least,
the sky, free of planes, can settle down for the night.
Press Save. Drain glass. Switch off light.