.. may have started with Homer (or maybe with the authors of the Sumerian verse inscribed with a stylus on clay tablets).  Anyway, here’s something between a revisionist version and a homage.   Alice Oswald’s book-length poem Memorial (Faber 2011) lifts out the brief stories – sketches, even – of all the minor characters in the Iliad who die in the Trojan war.  She names them all, in the way a war memorial does, and honours each one or each group with a free version of one of Homer’s extended metaphors.  Here’s a stunning example: think of drone strikes, or poisonous gases in Syria:

Like bird families feeding by a river

Hundreds of geese and herons and long-necked swans

When an ember of eagle a red hot coal of hunger

Falls out of the sky and bursts into wings

William Dalrymple, reviewing Sonali Deraniyagala’s book about her experience of the tsunami:

This is possibly the most moving book I have ever read about grief, but it is also a very, very fine book about love. For grief is the black hole that is left in our lives when we lose someone irreplaceable – a child, a parent, a lover. It is the negative image that, in its blackness, sometimes reveals love with a greater clarity than its positive counterpart.

.. to have the cremation:  some special music , and close family and friends standing around the coffin talking about the person who’s died, until they’re ready and the coffin goes through the doors.  Very simple, intimate and personal; and of course you can invite everyone else to a memorial ceremony later on, in a nicer venue than the crem.

Just follow (or cut & paste) the link:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=T_Yb9D-lZpQC&pg=PA16&lpg=PA16&dq=Tess+Gallagher+%22legend+with+sea+breeze%22&source=bl&ots=0RPKD96LsU&sig=HiWvCt7zcxHOUzSgushR2Wyztd8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=HBdQUabEDomEO9bjgfgP&ved=0CDsQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=Tess%20Gallagher%20%22legend%20with%20sea%20breeze%22&f=false

A visit to Salisbury Cathedral, and some thoughts about the kinds of memorial people chose to have.  Rich people, of course: I don’t think the poor have ever got buried in cathedrals.  Salisbury has two tombs of (I think) medieval bishops, both shown as corpses, the ribs showing through, head thrown back – the most unglamorous image you can imagine.    Then there’s a rather relaxed knight in chain mail, resting his feet on a very live and impatient-looking dog.  Only one woman – kneeling, demonstrating that she’s pious and unthreatening.  I suppose in all cases what we’re reminded of is our physical  existence (even after death) and individuality: not just words on a stone, but vivid images.

This morning’s Metro has an interview with Ben Brooks-Dutton, who writes a blog – http://lifeasawidower.com – about coping since his wife was killed in a road accident.  It’s very honest and straightforward.  He makes the point that men don’t generally write this sort of thing: maybe his openness can help other men (or women) in similar circumstances.

One of the great pleasures (as long as it’s not pouring) of conducting a funeral at Islington Crematorium is the long walk through the cemetery.  Today I wished I’d taken my camera.  The snow was mostly gone from the paths, but the graves were each covered with a neat white duvet.  The wreaths and decorations from before Christmas were mostly gone; just a few bright yellow gerberas, & then the monochrome.

The service today was particularly vivid and person, with a prose poem written and read by the sister of the man who’d died, and – most magically – two traditional Irish pieces played on the violin by his niece, a professional musician.  The recorded music was pretty good (including Pavarotti); but the immediacy of live music at a funeral I think can’t be beaten.