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Experiment 2

The Farmer's Funeral

page 16

The Farmer's Funeral.

'That no murners walk behind me at my funeral, and that no flours be planted on my grave'

- Hardy.

Field, flower and funeral
Followed in three green steps
This farmer's corked-down heart.
Now, in a polished Packard' s sombre black
Borne back on silver plated rails;
This husk of seventy summers
Withers within a flowered showcase,
Decked and drawn in a slow street cortege.

Strange that a man, alien to ticking towers
Should now be trailed by social grief,
That cannot leave to death it's natural quiet,
Unassuming, passionate but brief.

So, with public pomp, their blessing
Signified by each bent head;
Through courtesies and salted sorrow
They, in mild anguish, cool the dead.

Yet, who could recall his thatched heart's
Waking mornings, who would remember
Through the forced on tackle, his breath and tan.
The wooden-wise wisdoms, hewn from a man
Who's sense stormed life sang in the air,
The feeling stem of a feeding flower.

Now, at the earth's last hour,
His metal ploughs crowded pastures,
And a naked flame lies freezing in its soil.

- Peter Bland.