Who'll cancel his undergraduation?

They'll sneak a plot of consecrated ground for you - 

All those muttering priests, your brothers - 

Chasing their blues away

On this, your burial day.

 

Across these empty fenlands Puritan melodies float

Echoing the empty whiteness of the sky.

 

All those unseen congregations,

Unrelenting in all their brittle affirmations.

 

Before addiction or withdrawal struck,

Your quiet breath lifted the candle-flame

Flickered image into your eyes, renewed you.

 

Now, in January 1992, Siberian winds

Howl down these Anglian fens

No churchyard bells strike no flattened notes.

 

There have been so many

Last minute resignations,

Of late.