Going to Heathcote Williams’s Funeral in Oxford

by Vanessa Vie

    1      How a hawk flew:
      Forked are the wings
      Forked is the substance
      For whom the bell tolls

        Over water
        Over a single stem of dandelion
        Over lovers seeing this    single stem of dandelion
         And weeping    willows drooping    to touch water

         Lest death
                                         and after–death
                                                          please some
                                                                                  signs of solace

              2      There was a bus going to Jericho
        but we pilgrims walked
        at canal–water pace    athirst
        to St Barnabas Church —

        How the light shone extra brilliant
        t h r o u g h the rose window

        Then I saw    inscribed on the wall
        an igniting note: Cherubim & Seraphim continually do cry

Heathcote Williams (1941– 2017), English poet, actor, political activist and dramatist.