Outcomes from a funeral

[jimbo0941]

 I witnessed man today. Humanity was present in my Uncle Bob moreso than anything I've seen in such a long time. That was what I ended up getting out of the memorial service, a sense of humanity, what it means to be human; how it feels. He had been married for sixty years. He doesn't know that I know this, but he had nightmares for years after the war, he was the only one who survived an attack by the Japanese in the night on his encampment the rest of his group being stabbed to death in the dark, and she was the one who had comforted him for all those years. She was the mother of his children and as he put it, better than anything else she had been his best friend. He read this poem by W.H. Auden while sobbing. It was the darkest thing I've ever seen.

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message She Is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public
    doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

She was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.