Vestments
...for the Rev Eric Shirvell-Price
A blizzard of papers blanketed his desk.
His pipe rack stood like a chess piece,
mutely waiting to be shifted.
Sepia-toned photographs lined the mantle shelf
like soldiers standing at attention,
and there was a smell of stale tobacco.
Volumes and manuscripts burst from a bookshelf,
while origami figures lined another.
A coffee mug bore stains of sherry aperitifs
and port to accompany his after dinner cigar.
Crosswords and limericks were everywhere,
vestiges of his light and lively mind.
There were newspaper articles,
and empty fast food containers,
evidence of lonely, late night dietary indiscretions.
His vestments hung limply from a coat hook like wraiths,
belying his portly and prodigious frame.
the frame which now lay in a mahogany box,
a shadow of his former self,
full measure of the man that he once was.
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