You took pride-of-place in every picture.
You were the subject of my every scene.
Now, though I scrabble through the box of pieces,
I cannot find a trace of where you've been.
And what is the point of life without a focus;
A photograph without a centre-point?
The emptiness will stretch into the future
For everything in life is out of joint.
*
--------------------------------------------------------------
PAPA!
(A Victorian grieving.)
For a year and a day I will mourn him, the father of my child,
As the winds of grief blow round my heart, ever more chill and wild.
He was taken to live with the angels; he looks down on us from above!
Baby dear, kiss your own Papa, who gazes down with love.
I remember his face, so waxen, as he breathed his final breath
In life, my dear, he was lovely. He was lovely even in death.
They laid out my mourning costume, the thick black bombazine.
It breaks my heart to remember that he loved me best in green.
We'll stay fast in the house, my lovely, till our mourning days are done.
The shadowy house becomes us much more than the blazing sun.
I'll draw back the curtains one moment; you must kiss Papa on the face.
But to leave them open for longer would be a dreadful disgrace.
The clocks were all stopped at three, love, the time that the angels came;
To let them sound out the hours since then would bring this house great shame.
When a year and a day have passed, dear, I'll walk out in a dress of grey.
Am I really so terribly wicked to long for that distant day?
We'll visit the graveyard on Sunday; you'll wear your little black dress,
And passers-by will doff their hats to acknowledge our great distress.
Little children have to be taught, love, what a family death can mean.
I'm only just learning myself, you know, and I am all of sixteen.
*
