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Vuyelwa Carlin

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The Memorial Service

Kampala and Port Bell, Uganda.

The old Hindu crematorium, high-walled and grassy:
the open pyre, butter placed in your mouth –

no! we stayed away.  Next morning – bright
as Eden, still cool – we scooped ash

into a paper bag; dropped dewy flowers
on all the earths, particles, powders.

Then to Port Bell: home of Bell beer, dark
in its black bottles – sits like stone you said,

quaffing of an evening on the front steps.
Your ashes were cast on the lake.

And they have swirled in those waterways:
twirled with corpses in the terrible times.

St. Mary’s Church, Shropshire.

Thirty years ago I watched you depart,
across the neighbours’ back garden, rapidly,

swinging your arms, intent.
The shadow of me knew this was it –

the fascinating journey, at last:
-   No God – but the beauty of Death! – you said.

We told our tales of you, in this ancient space,
its elegance of light, and arch.

You were elusive, mostly, as ever:
but your dry, pitiless vanishing was held

in these stones, sunk in green:
this place of precious oils poured upon the head.

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