Tears, like the rain falling, like
the first pale flowers opening in spring,
oh such a surprise. And then
the full riot of tears, beauty, weather,
before the leaves begin falling again.
But this time the whole tree has fallen
with a great echo and scurry through the forest.
That’s the way she went: with wind and stormclouds
and nine days of rain, and over East Ham
Town Hall a double rainbow, and no doubt
at each foot of it a whole crock of gold
for anyone foolish enough to look for it.
There’s always an end, has to be,
an end to everything, to summer
and to rain, to love even.
And to the endless sketch of the conversation
in the head – if you remember it aright,
if it ever took place, ever happened at all –
even if it’s just a conversation
you only imagined, longed for, for years,
with this woman everyone loved.
Dead now, and so far beyond all our desires,
said or unsaid, all of it the same now
in the broad length and the long breath.
All I can say is: let the heart fill,
let it flood with love, till it bursts.
What else is there?
Death, my friends,
is a dark blood red wine, that comes
in a tall green bottle, a Rioja from Spain,
or a Merlot from somewhere abouts Balaton,
with a label that is but one small corner
of a Csontváry painting: Mary at the Well,
circa 1908: women come for water,
on their elegant heads great clay pitchers
borne aloft with such tall, timeless, eloquence.