This afternoon I have been looking through the beautiful book of Mary Webb's Poems and prose (The Spring of Joy) I found in the Laugharne bookshop 2 years back. Sadly, not just for pure pleasure, but to try and find a special poem for a close friend of mine whose best friend has just passed away. I just cannot imagine the immense pain of losing my best friend, of how I would cope with such a loss. We see such close friends as an extension of ourselves, a sibling, almost a mirror image. To have them snatched away in mid life with still so much to give and to live for is almost like a game where you are playing fair and by the rules, and suddenly Death cheats and wins.
So, for J, in memory of J, this is the nearest I can come to a poem of condolence:
THE HILLS OF HEAVEN
We were in the hills of heaven
But yesterday!
All was so changeless, quiet, fair,
All swam so deep in golden air;
White-tapered chestnuts, seven by seven,
Went down the shady valleys there
Where daffodils are, and linnets play;
And singing streams of yellow and brown
Through golden mimulus ran down.
Ah, haunted were the hills of heaven,
Where no tree falls and none is riven,
Where the frail valley-lilies stay
Becalmed in beauty, every leaf
and every flower! Ah, bitter grief -
Remembering the hills of heaven
And yesterday!
