To my Wife’s Aunt Dying

Kathleen your name is strong and light as the leaves
that in green thousands carry the future plain
and fall and die. Yet nothing in me grieves.

We who at one remove as thick as thieves
colluded . . . chatted correctly, in the main.
Kathleen your name is strong and light as the leaves

that the wind takes, sometime, the earth receives.
All in a day the green storms rise again
to fall and die. Yet nothing in me grieves,

for closeness of the mind all but retrieves
the thinking heart. That nearness will remain.
Kathleen your name is strong and light as the leaves

that force the good world on. Their light achieves
a certain splendour in the human brain . . .
to fall and die. Yet nothing in me grieves

that frail and luminous strength. When death bereaves
those whom I know – shall I then feel the pain?
Kathleen your name is strong and light as the leaves
that fall and die. Yet nothing in me grieves.