When I hear that nobody else will be by your side

on the day that you will feel at your most lonesome,

I try to hide my disappointment

but I know as I make my way

across town to the shaded autumn glade,

one shrouded in finery and the memories

of my own Grandfather’s ashes

I will do my best to remember the good

times we shared.

 

I’ve only ever been there once

I could not go on the day when they took

My hero away, I could not face the prospect

of feeling alone with so many people around

and my dear cousin also felt the same.

 

I found myself there one March morning

just after the new millennium, I took it

as a sign of that was the day you should have died

and not some fifteen years too early at an age

when there were still more stories to come,

so much I still had learn from a man

who could weave a tale from ashes

and make it burn as brightly

as what the curtain held back

from us as the music of the departed played on.

 

Ian D. Hall 2015