07. Burying our Dandelion Dad

It was bright the day we buried him
ten miles from the fields he’d ploughed
hedged, into the corner of a sloping cemetery.

He had become a space contained
by polished elm. The only creatures round him
distant friends, and family

who squeezed between the mound
of grave soil and the edge, protected by a cloth
of artificial grass, to throw

their meagre hand-full of uncertainty
after the sober preacher’s solemn words
were cast upon the mid-day air unerringly.

–
This was the season when he’d sown the polished grains
drilling into crumbled soil
broken down by winter’s frozen rain

brown paper tied beneath his belted coat
protection from the new spring’s chilling wind
the pale sun’s conjuring.

We drove away as quickly as we came
then on the roadside verges noticing
dandelions massed

as bold as brass,
far brighter than the light of day
that even now was faltering.