Last year my mother died. <br />I was not there; she died alone. <br />It was mid-winter when <br />we buried her. The roads were treacherous <br />that day, the coldest of the year. <br />Few people made it to the funeral, <br />the church was nearly empty. <br />My son and daughter each <br />read out a poem <br />she had written in her younger days. <br />The priest, who had not known her, <br />said the prayers. From there we went <br />by car, the tyres crunching on the ice, <br />to where the grave had been prepared <br />in the cemetery that waited <br />on the outskirts of the town. <br />The ground was frozen hard. <br />We stood and listened to the prayers <br />the priest intoned, tall and upright <br />there above the open grave while <br />all the time the icy wind blew <br />flurries of snow over the graves <br />and by the groves of evergreens, <br />So cold, so bleak, so utterly unforgettable <br />the scene, but what was strange: <br />I did not mind the cold, <br />that seeped into my heart and bones. <br />It seemed somehow appropriate. <br /> <br /><br />Pete Crowther<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-cold-day-in-january/
