FIVE YEARS...
A black day. Five years ago someone was busy dying in A&E. Incredible! Amazing! Even the day has come round again - Friday morning, rush-hour. Dates are arbitrary and ultimately they don't matter, but even so they remind and measure it, like it or not.

Then,
And if you should leave me
I would say that the ghost
Of Casandra
Has passed through
My eyes
I would say that the stars
In their malice
Merely light up the sky
To stretch my torments
And that the waves crash
On the shore
To bring salt-stings
On my face:
For you reconnect me with
All the lights of the sky
And the salt of the waves
And the myths in the air
And with your passing
The evening would become too dark
To dream in
And the morning
Too bright

BEN ORKI


and now,
The dead are always looking down on us, they say,
While we are putting on our shoes or making a sandwich,
They are looking down through the glass-bottom boats of heaven
As they row themselves slowly through eternity.

They watch the tops of our heads moving below on earth
And when we lie down in a field or on a couch
Drugged perhaps by the hum of a warm afternoon
They think we are looking back at them

Which makes them lift their oars and fall silent
And wait, like parents, for us to close our eyes.

BILLY COLLINS