for David and David
For seventy-two hours dust
may settle elsewhere, and bugs
agree a ceasefire: during
even the longest weekends
our selves and our closest friends
do very well, managing
nicely the nicer drugs,
no one over troubled by lust,
careful of our good fortune
through what fortune may contrive:
accidents (a nasty blow
to the host’s head) for instance;
on terms with Dame Chance,
and the crew she keeps in tow:
the four gaunt horsemen, the five
naked Furies, and the full moon.
And, since this is holiday
(fools’ paradise, were our eyes,
which they are not, shut) ….so we
undergo at one remove
what befalls the ones we love:
treating it not as theory,
but at least without surprise,
listening to what we say
au sujet de nos enfants’
vulnerabilities, flaws
and tansgressions (all, we share)
and how to get over them
or perhaps only through them;
then from home, because we care
after a reflective pause
(we can’t forget the parents
who are blazing our trail to
the seven decrepitudes:
our laughter is in the teeth
of toothlessness, and our second
most repeated prayer: “beyond
that horizon, a quick death.”)…
we phone with solicitudes
all felt, all meant and all true.
Thus even the worst can be
withstood; the fact that, despite
all the right observances,
offerings and sacrifice,
the Gods are simply not nice.
can in these circumstances
be borne; and what is not right -
our loved ones’ mortality -
can be endured, almost. So
if, looking in the coffin
we meet with a look of calm,
or quitting the field we find
relief, let us thank the Kind
Ones: may they keep far from harm,
our near and dearest, within
their care wherever we go.
March 05