It was my sister’s funeral today.

We watched it on TV, live streamed. Getting there during lockdown, even as it is starting to ease, had so many logistical problems that we decided to gather here, comforted by the knowledge that there will be other gatherings when they become possible to hug again.

Funerals are so important. Gill, one of Katharine’s oldest friends, and a Baptist minister, led this one. How she managed it through her own grief was remarkable. She spoke from her heart, with no fear of her emotion, be it laughter or tears. Katherine would have been so proud.

As for me, even so soon afterwards, it feels as though the funeral unlocked something. Not just the tears, but also a way to connect myself with the reality of grief. For the past three weeks it has been with me constantly, but more like background radiation- corosive but not conclusive.

The family asked if I would write something for the funeral, and I tried. How I tried. I have at least three poems, but either they were too personal, or too dishonest. How could I say anything about my sister they did not say everything? And how could one poem ever say everything, particularly now.

In the end, I sent a poem I wrote a few years ago. I can’t remember the context in which I wrote it, but that does not matter for now it has a new one.

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Practice the wound of love

Let it devastate

Let it scrape your soul

For blessed are the gentled

Blessed are the meek

Blessed are those whose fullness now lies

Empty

.

Practice the wound of love

Rest now in that broken place

Where grief is never silent

And ragged roots of love

Tap the trampled earth

Blessed are you as you reach for love

Because it reaches out for you

.

Practice the wound of love

Let it devastate

For nothing ever came from nothing

(Apart from love)

At the end of everything

We are just cups

Who are cupped.

.

We are held.

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