A Departure

Next Saturday there'll be a memorial for a my co-worker's wife, Wanda. I learned about her being terminally ill with cancer a few months ago. Early this month, she passed. I didnt' know her that well but the news still saddened me.

This evening, I stumbled on a poem I had heard in "Four Weddings And A Funeral" on the Internet. I remember thinking "it was very touching" and thought that it was written by the film's screenwriter. I was wrong. The poem called "Funeral Blues" or "Stop all the clocks" was written by W. H. Auden. And to read its entirety in five stanzas was even better.

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.