Altared
I’d written your eulogy.
When the call came to be the one
to stand at the altar
I was ready.
I would speak for us all
(the now-six of us)
and wrote that speech
confident and sure
of my ability to do so.
After all, I’d spoken to thousands.
Stood in the European Parliament
at the United Nations
and conferences since in
Beijing and Moscow and Dubai.
I had the quotes chosen,
the reflections underlined,
the anecdotes polished and true.
And then they told me what they wanted,
my mother and my siblings;
and it was perhaps
less eloquent than mine,
less well-turned than mine…
and that was what I did.
Read their words
(not mine)
recognising that I hadn’t been chosen for my eloquence
but because I might be trusted to speak
of you without breaking into tears.
And how should I take that even now?
The realisation that they thought me
sufficiently insulated by my ego
to speak on their behalf
without the tears they’d have been helpless to prevent?
Every talent masks a failing,
every strength a void;
and funerals serve to bury many things
worth consigning to the dust,
however painful the loss.