On Mourning The Death Of A Neighbour (Poetry)

What can you say about a man you see most days
but in truth you scarcely know?
For more than twenty years you’ve traded nods
small pleasantries while passing to and fro
Now you hear he’s gone — not moved out but
without notice passed on. And it shocks you
it rocks you to the core Death has suddenly come close
tapped you on the shoulder — made a ghost from
a solid neighbour just a few yards from your door

It’s so very unexpected — the degree to which you mourn
you can’t help thinking for so long he’s been a part
of daily life and now you’ll miss him — find it weird
this ghastly trick that has him disappeared
you watch an empty stage as they strip his flat
its emptiness seems wrong

And from your kitchen window you observe
with small pangs of sorrow how the parking space
he used to use is bare. Then it strikes you that
his car is gone — driven off you don’t know when
by someone and you forget the last time that
you even saw it there

Nostalgia hauls you back to view again the grainy clips
that give a glimpse of him which only heightens guilt —
some vague regret you might in all those years
have done something to be a better neighbour. Ah,
but then he wasn’t the most popular of men!

He rowed with other tenants — fussed and moaned
and generally got up the common nose. They talked
about him — speculated none-too-kindly and
eventually most chose to ignore him — avoid him
when they could. Yet he was obviously lonely
and probably thoroughly misunderstood

But what good is all this now? This maudlin attempt
to analyse another’s life and needs when it’s too late
because a fearful gale’s blown through and left a
hanging-off-the-hinges banging gate

So. Who do you mourn for really in the chilly light
of evening when a pale sun’s ducked down behind tall trees?
It’s natural that every soul believes in basic human empathy
responding to those funeral bells you say a prayer perhaps
for him while deep inside you know the truth —
each one of us grieves chiefly for ourselves