Haibun
The
Mariner's Grave
They buried my cousin last
week. Death, even that which has been anticipated, always
comes as a shock; a sudden full stop at the end of a badly
typed page.
It was a dreary tale much to do with small town life and
alcohol and I shan't bother you with the details.
As a result, I found myself some miles from home in the
church yard of a small fishing community.
Members of my family congregated in small, sober coloured
knots. The ones who still talked exchanged hushed
pleasantries; those who didn't, through some ancient or
half-forgotten grievance, did their best to avoid each
others' gaze.
I had brought my son with me; a year old, curly haired and
button-bright. My wife had encouraged me to do so; she
rightly thought that he might give people something to
talk about and would relieve the tension of the day—new
life forming a fitting contrast to the occasion.
We made it through the first hymn—the
strangeness of the proceedings, the sonorous echoes of the
granite building, the badly played organ all added to my
son's sense of stupefaction leaving him wide-eyed,
bewildered and temporarily dumbstruck. Half way through
the eulogy, though, he regained his equilibrium and
started his usual play-talking, and bubble blowing. To
maintain the dignity of the day I gathered his squirming
form in my arms and withdrew from the church.
Outside I lofted him up on my shoulders. He laughed out
loud and as we walked around the churchyard I felt his
fingers toying softly with my hair.
There was a fabulous view from the churchyard. The early
Spring sea had been whipped up into ranks of creamy white
horses that stretched out to the horizon. Fishing boats
after early mackerel were circling around the bay and
gannets diving after shoals of bait fish looked like
gleaming white lightning falling from the sky.
We wandered around the graves, the oldest ones as always
being closest to the church. Time, lichen and the
salt-laden sea air had done its best to erase the work of
even the finest monumental mason and many of the poor
souls buried here were rendered nameless.
In a quiet corner, though, listing like a holed schooner
and half buried in small, pink flowers we found one that
was readable at last.
Sacred to the Memory of
Alfred Harvey-Mariner.
Wrecked On These Shores
Fourteenth Day of October 1823
'The Lord Shall Offer Safe Harbour'
I heard the creak of the
heavy wooden church door and a crunch of gravel and I
realised that the funeral service was over.
drowned
in a tide of sea-thrift—
a mariner's grave
