A man's last journey
is infinitely moving.
Death itself can be terrible,
traumatic, tearful, tragic,
or merely trite -
a non-event.
But the cortège is particularly touching
when the body is carried
past those sights and scenes
and through the memories
it nourished.
Mine is a simple enough passage:
they carry me among alders and limes,
my ears deaf now
to the lapping of the river wave
and the rustle of swans.
CORTÈGE