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In Cephalonian Waters


At the round about near the large house
where you used to play as a child,
I stood in the blistering heat of May
with eight busloads of irate pressmen.
They sweated and shouted and complained
that by being put at the end of the motorcade
they would miss getting a "flavour" of
the procession of death that we awaited.
I pleaded protocol, Defence Ministry rules
to little avail and in disgust finally said
"Sorry, this is not primarily a media event".
And just then in a grey Ambassador car
with the windows rolled down
your wife and your daughter passed slowly.
Your gun carriage with your pitiful remains
which I had seen two days before
in that narrow vertibule in the house
in which you used to play
and where your mother lay seven years ago
passed in front of me.
I raised my folded hands
and smiled sadly as your wife and
daughter as they passed me on their way.
And then I bundled my sweating steaming journalists
into their buses and tortuously followed
the line of cars past the Army house,
the British High commissioner’s and then in front of
the building where you sat and ruled
this country for five years and more
and where we met from time to time.
Then a blue and white helicopter,
one of those machines you loved so much
flew over our heads over and over again
scattering rose petals that withered as
they fell gently to the parched pavement below.
Long lines of quiet crowds stood
patiently in the merciless afternoon blaze
to catch a glimpse of your carriage
for the last time.
At Shaktisthal, as far as the eye could see
beyond the artificial lakes
and the man-made mounds
covered with the greenest grass
were thousands and thousands
of patient people scorched by the sun, their eyes transfixed on the
raised red brick platform
where you would be laid.