When we scattered my Mum's ashes on Dartmoor my Dad insisted that we go into the pub and have some lunch first. Some of you may know this pub - in the middle of nowhere with nothing around except for moor and no mains electricity - and a howling gale. By that time my brother had taken the ashes out of the car and turned to take them back - but Dad grabbed the bag and said "No, bring her." So we had the slightly bizarre experience of having the urn of ashes on the floor between us as lunch was eaten. There was to be honest something slightly comic about it.
This is a poem I wrote about it:
Goodbye
The undertaker arrives with my mother’s ashes
And places them on the floor by the table.
My mother, who read poetry,
Is in a brown plastic urn
In a pink cardboard carrier bag
With a kitsch greetings card flower.
We drive in convoy to the top of the moor.
Dad grabs the bag from the car, says
Let’s eat first
As he marches into the pub.
My mother, who read poetry,
Sits between our knees
As the Guinness slops
And the chips arrive.
Outside, we pour the ashes
Into the driving rain
As the black bikers speed through the fog.
My mother, who read poetry,
Sinks into the wet sheep shit.
We scrape our shoes and stand huddled at the roadside.
Her dregs cling to the plastic.
Take it says Dad, thrusting the bag towards my brother
Who bundles it into the boot and drives away.
Half way home, they stop at a motorway service station
For coffee and a pee.
He dumps the bag in a waste bin.
My mother, who read poetry,
Sits amongst the empty cans and chewing gum wrappers.
A man walks by and drops in his cigarette end.
Goodbye Mum.
