November is my mum’s birthday month. I wrote this poem just after she died in September 2017.
Frith Wood Memorial Bench
The air is still
or so it seems until
on the edge of vision,
the rosebay willow herb’s feathered heads
appear to sway.
Is that how dying is
an imperceptible swaying on the edge
a movement toward then away
here then not
as the last breath leaves?
Distant crows caw.
A wood pigeon coos.
The wind picks up, rustles
the uppermost leaves of the sky-ranging beeches
then ceases.
The rosebay stills.
No birdsong or other sound
enters the silence.