The Last Cigarette

Sitting outside
in your garden,
gulls were crying
overhead...heard
the Macmillan nurse
shut your window,
and I hid my cigarette
in the fold of my coat.

The thin, brown line
of a bee visited the clover
and the rain stopped
then started again.
Beneath the Walnut –
shedding now,
your little pond –
golden orfes,
mouths agog...

Walked the path
through your gate
leads out onto the lane,
with its brook – runs
right alongside
to the rickety bridge
where I threw
the burned-out butt –
watched it float away
from the place your grandson
once used to call Land
of the Forever Young,
Tir Na Nog.