You laughed aloud

(at Ian Page’s funeral)

    by Murray Alfredson

From whence it came, that wind that shook the tiles

then went, none knew; it was as though

it swift-stooped eagle-like and struck.  Some said

it was mere turbulence — they spouted chaos —

a random happenstance; but others took

it as a visiting — to tell us all

who’d gathered in farewell, though elements

of mind, of body parted, though form was left

to rot inside your coffin, still you flew

mercurial and free like wind.  On drift

of memories and eulogy you rode;

you laughed aloud that all was well with you.

© 2010 Murray Alfredson

Murray Alfredson has worked as a librarian, lecturer and in Buddhist chaplaincy. He is a prize-winning poet, has published essays and poems in Australia, England, and America, and a collection, ‘Nectar and light’, in Friendly Street new poets, 12, Adelaide: Friendly Street Poets and Wakefield Press, 2007.