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What would the dead want from us
Watching from their cave?
Would they have us forever howling?
Would they have us rave
Or disfigure ourselves, or be strangled
Like some ancient emperor’s slave?
None of my dead friends were emperors
With such exorbitant tastes
And none of them were so vengeful
As to have all their friends waste
Waste quiet away in sorrow
Disfigured and defaced.
I think the dead would want us
To weep for what they have lost.
I think that our luck in continuing
Is what would affect them most.
But time would find them generous
And less self-engrossed.
And time would find them generous
As they used to be
And what else would they want from us
But an honored place in our memory,
A favorite room, a hallowed chair,
Privilege and celebrity?
And so the dead might cease to grieve
And we might make amends
And there might be a pact between
Dead friends and living friends.
What our dead friends would want from us
Would be such living friends.
__________
For Andrew Wood by James Fenton. Find it in Children in Exile: Poems 1968-1984.
The photo is of my old friend Daniel and was taken in Muckross House in Ireland.
Samuel De Lemos said:
…a pact between us, dead friends and the living one[s]…
The poem was sweet!
jrbenjamin said:
I agree — thanks for reading.
Rosaliene Bacchus said:
Especially loved the lines:
And what else would they want from us
But an honored place in our memory,
A favorite room, a hallowed chair,
Privilege and celebrity?
And so the dead might cease to grieve
And we might make amends
I’ve never thought of the dead grieving, but it works for me.
jrbenjamin said:
Yeah I like how the perspective is flipped. We’re enjoined to feel how the dead are mourning for what they have lost.
Very powerful.
Thanks for reading and commenting.
drgeraldstein said:
A rather different comment on the dead comes from the author of “Undertakings,” Thomas Lynch, a published poet and professional undertaker. As a close observer or the dead, he says that “the dead don’t care.”
jrbenjamin said:
That’s an interesting take. And epistemic philosophers would probably argue that it is senseless to follow the wishes of a being which doesn’t exist. Still, there is a longing to please our former friends and loved ones. As Saul Bellow said, you don’t need to visit the dead, because they are always visiting you.