Stop all the Clocks
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This was originally posted here on my first blog, 38andGrowing.
A lovely man left this world yesterday to start his new adventure. He shall be greatly missed. It is stunning how such personal loss can seem unfelt by the greater world. Life continues on and there is a great beauty in that, but personally, it can feel so incongruent that one has trouble catching breath. Fifteen years ago, I lost my brother and I read this beautiful poem by Auden. My FIL attended that funeral and today I post these same words in his honor. Auden expressed these feelings of disconnect far better than I so I shall let this great man's words properly honor another great man.
Funeral Blues
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
