Later

LATER

1

at their grave site
I no longer bring my parents
my need of them

over time
the self settles
and is not lost

in nearby fields
mares shimmer
with special light
in the presence of their foals

where larks tumble
singing over them
my parents are at peace

whatever of theirs
I resemble
is now indivisibly mine

2

those who mean to keep
death a secret from us
know nothing about the powerful
cleansing loneliness
of the cemetery

rows of former minds
outside time
lying listening
to birdsong ritually dispersed
among roadsides and districts
larks over graves
and starlings feeding between them
a blackbird’s living sheen
like polished granite

some who die young
are loved so much
remembered with such pain
their families bring offerings for years
toys photographs gifts
for the sun to dull
to the pallor of faded plastic flowers
in front of the abject stone

3

the fault is not
in failing to love
but failing to see
how others love you

the stone man
toughing it out
unweeping at the funeral
fears for his own vulnerability

we are weak
we die
we don’t and can’t
keep promises

Tony Beyer

My concept of a cemetery is conditioned by my upbringing. Little River cemetery is beside the small wooden Anglican church on a knoll where the two main valleys converge. My father is buried there, all four grandparents, numerous uncles and aunts, other relatives while most of the graves are of people I knew or have heard about. It’s a peaceful spot, surrounded by trees, grazing sheep and cattle. High sentinel hills look down. Rod Donald, Green co-leader lies there.

The last time I visited was to take my mother then 92 years old. That morning the Columbia space shuttle disintegrated re-entering the earth’s atmosphere, a spectacular and public death for its crew. I helped Mum teeter along the gravestones thinking those age-old thoughts about the enormity of death, and the sudden stoppage of a particular combination of soul in flesh and bone.

A few years later Beyer’s selected poems came out. When I read this poem memories of that visit flooded back. He superbly described such a scene - though a different location - and that medley of elusive musings I’d chased that day. So often we think our thoughts are fresh and original. It is with surprise we learn that others have similar thoughts and articulate them better.