Let me die a springtime death

Let me die a springtime death

A lambs-gambolling, daffodils-nodding, cricket on the green sort of death

Not a bare-branched, hunched in overcoats, flecks of snow in the hair, bleak mid-winter death

May the smells be of cut grass and barbeques

And the path strewn with the fall of magnolia petals

And the sounds be of birds chatter and outside-the-pub natter

Not of slush in the gutter and the swish of the gritter...

May folk be late for my wake because of cricket practise

Or miss it to make love in fields under circling swallows

Not grimly stuck in snow, ice-crystals on windows

Let my ashes disappear in new-growing grass

Rather than lie naked on hard cold soil

Let me die a death in Spring...

...but only when I’m tired of it.

(Inspired by Roger McGough)