I remember us
By Juliet A. Paine
Published 1 January 2021
This afternoon
the sunlight is hard and coarse
the clouds try desperately
to blot it out.
The mourners are subdued
as a rock concert crowd
at the beginning
of the saddest song.
Each person
brings a flower:
a shortened life
like the girl
in the white coffin.
Well-meant words
fly aimlessly
as pretty butterflies
around the family.
A father stands,
he's a teddy bear
that's lost its favourite child.
A mother cries distraught
- an abandoned china doll
in paradise.
And finally a son
who can't keep wicket
to his sister anymore.
Their grief is as stubborn
as that hard sunlight
which reaches the ground today.