Public Funeral Poem by Bernard Henrie

Distented afternoons without yellow sunlight,
followed by a half-dark night, a moon gold
as the mouth of a Calcutta dentist.

In the night air at our telescope, his wool scarf
knotted like a race horse tail he could see
the mud houses along the Zambezi.

For my mother, a satin tux, supper at Claridge,
green Pernod at the hidden Fumoir bar;

Swells of pink clouds fetched him to shore;
his funeral boat over the reeds of the Orinoco,
the waves of his native patients intent on saying
good bye as his funeral cortege passed by.