Death in Aldeburgh

The old friends are assembled in the Red House,
are asked to come and voice a brief farewell,
to pitch him their unbroken pure laudamus:
the one whom he blazed out, though she was ill
with nerve disease, the one he brusquely sacked
for questioning the joint imperious will,
the one who had not shown sufficient tact
in telling jokes, the one who stood and eavesdropped
on his practising. All those friendships wrecked
the ebb reveals to him, like small roles grouped
for one of his finales, but not singing,
just smiling, thinking, ‘Ben, they never stopped
us loving you, those crushing waves and stinging
rebuffs, that icy undertow, each storm,
each murderous calm. We kept on bringing
our scrofulas for your touch to transform –
and you would rise and glow and wave creation’s
spring tide across our skins, your light, your warmth
ripening above these manuscript horizons
to light the steep grey shingle of your moods
and stir our mid-life mill-pond with your passions.’

John Greening