For poets it’s easy to write to the dead. It seems natural. I haven’t written anything to the dead, although I did the other day spend hours writing memories of my dead mother and father; but I didn’t write to them as I did every week for eight years when at medical school and in New Zealand. I might resume writing to them. I certainly think of them often, and I know that if my living wife were to die today then I would write to her every day to console me for her loss (actually my loss).

The dead may appear in dreams as in Wendell Berry’s (1934–) poem, and then they need to be addressed. But Berry doesn’t speak directly to his friend but writes about him in the third person. I like the thought that he, the anonymous dead man, “is the same/ for the dead are changeless./ They grow no older./It is I who have changed,/grown strange to what I was.” I am still younger than my parents when they died, but soon I may be older. How could I be older than my own mother and father? That’s a clever trick of death.

The dead can be summoned through memory, and W S Graham (1918-1986) is worried that he may for his friend Bryan Winter be “greedy to make you up/ Again out of memory?” I can’t imagine that the dead are troubled to be remembered. They are more likely to be flattered. Or is Graham worried about the making up, which is, I suppose, what you must do to remember. The person who is made up is not the same as the dead person.

We will follow where the dead have already gone, and they can help us prepare ourselves for death. Graham asks his dead friend “Bryan, I would be obliged/If you would scout things out/For me.”

Charles Bukowski (1920-1994) remembers his lover (I presume) dead for 28 years with remnants of lust, but he also envies her:

“you finally got
out
by dying,
leaving me with the
rotten
present”

We may all have times when we envy the dead.

These three poets all write to the dead simply and directly. There is little decoration. That seems right to me.

The dead are, we hope, in a good place. At the least still and silent, but Graham imagines his friend “Are you still somewhere/With your long legs/And twitching smile under/Your blue hat walking/Across a place?” Not a beach, a hill, or a park but “a place.” Graham’s imagination has failed him.

Berry is clear that his friend is in a good place.

“How you been?”
He grins and looks at me.
“I been eating peaches
off some mighty fine trees.”

Meeting by Wendell Berry

In a Dream I meet
my dead friend. He has,
I know, gone long and far,
and yet he is the same
for the dead are changeless.
They grow no older.
It is I who have changed,
grown strange to what I was.
Yet I, the changed one,
ask: “How you been?”
He grins and looks at me.
“I been eating peaches
off some mighty fine trees.”

Dear Bryan Winter  W S Graham

1

This is only a note

To say how sorry I am

You died. You will realise

What a position it puts

Me in. I couldn’t really

Have died for you if so

I were inclined. The carn

Foxglove here on the wall

Outside your first house

Leans with me standing

In the Zennor wind.

Anyhow how are things?

Are you still somewhere

With your long legs

And twitching smile under

Your blue hat walking

Across a place? Or am

I greedy to make you up

Again out of memory?

Are you there at all?

I would like to think

You were all right

And not worried about

Monica and the children

And not unhappy or bored.

2

Speaking to you and not

Knowing if you are there

Is not too difficult.

My words are used to that.

Do you want anything?

Where shall I send something?

Rice-wine, meanders, paintings

By your contemporaries?

Or shall I send a kind

Of news of no time

Leaning against the wall

Outside your old house.

The house and the whole moor

Is flying in the mist.

3

I am up. I’ve washed

The front of my face

And here I stand looking

Out over the top

Half of my bedroom window.

There almost as far

As I can see I see

St Buryan’s church tower

An inch to the left, behind

That dark rise of woods,

Is where you used to lurk.

4

This is only a note

To say I am aware

You are not here. I find

It difficult to go

Beside Housman’s star

Lit fences without you.

And nobody will laugh

At my jokes like you.

5

Bryan, I would be obliged

If you would scout things out

For me. Although I am not

Just ready to start out.

I am trying to be better,

Which will make you smile

Under your blue hat.

I know I make a symbol

Of the foxglove on the wall.

It is because it knows you.

Eulogy to a Hell of a Dame by Charles Bukowski

some dogs who sleep At night
must dream of bones
and I remember your bones
in flesh
and best
in that dark green dress
and those high-heeled bright
black shoes,
you always cursed when you drank,
your hair coming down you
wanted to explode out of
what was holding you:
rotten memories of a
rotten
past, and
you finally got
out
by dying,
leaving me with the
rotten
present;
you’ve been dead
28 years
yet I remember you
better than any of
the rest;
you were the only one
who understood
the futility of the
arrangement of
life;
all the others were only
displeased with
trivial segments,
carped
nonsensically about
nonsense;
Jane, you were
killed by
knowing too much.
here’s a drink
to your bones
that
this dog
still
dreams about.