I remember us
By Juliet A. Paine
Published 12 February 2021
This afternoon
the sunlight is hard and coarse
the clouds try desperately
to blot it out.
The mourners are subdued
as a rock concert crowd
at the beginning
of the saddest song.
Each person
brings a flower:
a shortened life
like the girl
in the white coffin.
Well-meant words
fly aimlessly
as pretty butterflies
around the family.
A father stands,
he's a teddy bear
that's lost its favourite child.
A mother cries distraught
- an abandoned china doll
in paradise.
And finally a son
who can't keep wicket
to his sister anymore.
Their grief is as stubborn
as that hard sunlight
which reaches the ground today.