The poem that I read at his funeral service: We were clearing things to sell on (to raise funds for his funeral) and this came fluttering out from the shelf as I took a handful of CDs. I took it home, scanned it, and put it away safely, from where it vanished. I still haven't been able to find the original, but have transcribed this from the scans. I corrected a few punctuation errors, but otherwise, it is as I found it:



The Raven folds her Wings. Att: M A Patterson

We are travellers through a landscape and may only stay a while,
Short and transient as moonbeams, or a loved one’s smile,
And our footprints soon are vanished from the wood or on the shore,
‘Til the Raven folds her wings and we’re no more.

You have seen the green glass ocean dump white madness on the decks.
You have tried to read her secrets on her hidden reefs and wrecks.
You have danced the circle skyclad, in the wood and wold, and shore
‘Til the Raven folds her wings and you’re no more.

You have seen, out in New England, watched the green man turning red,
As the Holly King did smite him, leave the Oaken King for dead;
Green and gold fading to snowfall, freezing landscape to the core;
‘Til the Raven folds her wings and he’s no more.

Now your times are moving onward, to the quiet end of days
Where the time it moves in circles, loses talent to amaze,
With its passage marked by newspapers that say less of more and more,
‘Til the Raven folds her wings, and they’re no more.

It’s an ending and beginning, cycling circles round and round.
Green shoots rise, mature, and wither and lie dead upon the ground.
Pale moons waxing and then waning, children born and leave the nest,
‘Til the Raven folds her wings and they’re at rest.

What is left behind that’s solid? Marking passage through the world,
Some a stone, for others ashes, for a few a banner furled.
For the lucky few it’s friendship that will last for evermore
‘Til the Raven folds her wings and it’s no more.

All that’s left is hope and friendship, and good people we once knew.
Hope may die, but friends endureth as the only thing that’s true.
And its fires, they burn so brightly; then they’re vanished line a song,
And the Raven folds her wings, and she is gone.