Explanation of a News Item

Dannie Abse

Police Constable Appleton said, 'At eight o'clock in the morning
the children looked through the railings and saw him walking
slowly through the cemetery.'

           He leading, they floated up
           in slow motion, as if under water
           (though there was no water)
           to the small, bright oblong above.
           'Are you ready?' he asked,
           with outstretched hand blindly.
          "I must not,' he heard her shout,
           'Tam but a ghost, a glitter on dust
           fading in the upper light.'
           He did not understand: he turned,
           he looked down into the dark;
           he looked aghast-and, suddenly,
           her voice plunging, cried out
           like an echo of an echo of an echo,
           so that he awoke startled
           in the February sunlight,
           walking on the gravel pathway
           between the stone-eyed angels
           and the nicely ordered graves.