Perhaps 20 years ago, I discovered the poem titled Funeral Blues quite by accident. I hadn't heard it rendered in a movie, as I later discovered it had been. I was at a bookstore and saw an audiotape in WH Auden's own voice. I had been using His Poem, The More Loving One in my MADD speeches for a long time.
I purchased the audiotape, plugged it in my tape player in the car, and when I heard him read Funeral Blues, it gave me a bit of an insight as to what Little Timmy's mother might have felt like on August 15, 1977, and the days to follow. I decided to start using it in my MADD speeches. I don't use it as often as I use to, but I thought I would share it with you here to meditate upon.
Funeral Blues, by W.H. Auden
by W.H. Auden
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 'He is Dead'.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He 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 forever: 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.