The Tangled Branch Discussion Forums

Standing room only, that morning 
in the transepts of St Mary the Virgin. 
Early February. 
I shivered as I gave the eulogy. 

You were only twenty
and your coffin was cold
to the shoulder. 

I don’t recall if you were light or heavy
or who, besides dad and I,
lowered you into the ground. 
I’m told there was a confusion 
with the cords. But I can see 

as though it were yesterday 
the faces of your young friends,
solemn, pale, unprepared
for the first of the soil
to strike the lid. 

They visit rarely, a decade on -
Adam, Karl, Danielle, 
bearing bunches of daffodils 
and scribbled notes. 

Lewis, as perhaps you read,
has had a baby boy. It’s something, I guess,
that he still makes time to visit. 
You must have meant a lot to him. 
 

This is the kind of write that might ease the pain of the writer a bit, it tears my heart out to read it. I am guessing the loss of a sibling. The address in plain speech makes it all the more poignant.

The address in plain speech makes it all the more poignant.

Totally agree with Linda. Very poignant Luke.

all the best

Phil

Evocative writing with plain language. This is good poetry. Welcome.  

Thanks all, a little cathartic it hopefully not too self indulgent.

Luke

A very good write Luke, not self indulgent at all.

Tough to read this one because it pulls me back thirty years to when, where and how I lost my son. Still struggling with why. Evocative poem, Luke. Hit all my senses--eyes, ears, head and heart. And not self indulgent at all. One element of a powerful poem is that it doesn't stay on the surface. It takes readers into the depths of the poet's life with enough universal appeal to give us something personal to take into our own lives. Thanks for posting this.

I have been dipping my toes in the epistolary form, and here you have hit it four-square. Your pace, tone, word-choices, and consistency are spot-on. It is so revealing what the N includes (and doesn't include). The most startling and effective is the sound of the soil striking the coffin. Brilliant stuff.

If a person wanted to tinker:

S.2 L.2 -- ". . . your coffin felt cold"

S.4 L4,5 -- " . . for the sound of the soil / striking the lid"-- I know it adds an "-ing", but does focus on the sound. Just a thought.

S.5 L.1 -- change end-line en dash to an em dash.

S.6 L.2 -- consider deleting "has", as it perhaps needlessly complicates the tense.

Love the closing of the poem.

Cheers.

T

Hi Luke,

A very sad piece, and I'm sorry for your loss. I wonder if focusing on one specific detail and teasing that out a bit might be a good approach here. I just found the ideas fairly familiar, despite it obviously being a very personal, heartfelt experience. For example, the process of giving the eulogy, weight of the coffin or the issue with the cords could be a more interesting point to begin at, or they could form the basis for a whole poem. If they're just a beginning, it could then open out into the more general, if you want to take that approach, after the more arresting beginning. You'd probably have to trim some of the rest of the poem, though, for pace/balance. If you do so, I'd suggest the last 2 verses could be deleted, as I don't think taking us away from the funeral scene helps the poem overall. I do hope the writing and editing of the poem helps you through the grieving process.

Thanks for sharing,

Trev
 

Luke, thank you for posting this.

Like Trevor, I think the first four stanzas carry the poem. They present, in spare language, only the very real details that grieving people would notice. Reading this poem, I shudder again remembering the thud of the first soil to hit the coffin during my first funeral. The last two stanzas, to me, change the mood, the style and the topic.

Nits: I kept playing with the order of sentences in lines 3-7—not sure whether I was after a logical thread, or what. I think personally I would have left out "young" in "your young friends."

Very moving poem.

Jackie