Three Funerals
Black insects processed
up the hill to the graveyard.
mourners all in black,
black gloved women.
The coffin shouldered all the way.
My grandmother’s funeral
seen as a child
from the front window
of the house she came from.
When my father died
the black we wore was on our feet.
We pulled on wellingtons
at the foot of the hill to climb
a track sloshing with weeks of rain.
His coffin was shouldered
around the triangle of roads
in the village – honoured,
then placed in the hearse
attached to a farm tractor
for the pull up the hill.
The mountain above us
was rain darkened.
A darkness of priests
gathered by the grave.
We were driven down
by the wind.
My aunt gave us a fine day,
a firm turf,
a flight of doves
from God knows where.
The Sun shone on us, sad mourners,
the mountain above,
the Golden Vale below
and on the four square farmhouse
we had all come from
and left.
© Rena Fleming
Rena Fleming.
Born on a farm in Co.Limerick. Living in Co.Galway since 1990.
She has studied and worked in weaving, textile design, and painting.
She began to write a few years ago and has been writing poetry and some stories since.
Her poems have been published in many poetry magazines. Her book Somebody and Nobody was published in 2023 in Ireland.
The Loch Raven Review 