The Beaufort Scale

I wrote this poem after attending the Service for the Faithful Departed at St Paul’s Church, Rusthall in Kent, celebrating All Souls Day, 2024 – a year ago.

The Beaufort Scale 

A wind is molecules unsettled by
a gradient of warmth and weight. 
Light Breeze is wind that rustles leaves,
is felt upon your skin, and on
the Beaufort Scale sits just above Light Air, 
which merely hints at ripples on the sea, 
and that a plume of smoke may slightly drift.

They walked, together but alone, 
towards the altar, where
a host of candles had been placed 
on a table, in the shape of a cross. 
Unwilling to raise their eyes 
from the floor, or the task,
each took the lighted taper in their turn.

She lit a candle, remembered him clearly 
and returned to her pew, 
unable by then not to watch 
as others focused wholly on 
the act of lighting, and sobbed 
or quietly cried, or appeared straight-backed, 
detached from or at one with the rite.

The smoke rose vertically at first,
with barely a trace of drift. 
But as the vicar completed his prayer 
beside the burning cross, she felt the touch, 
the heat and innocence of all the dead 
in all the distant lands we pray for, 
Sunday after Sunday, on her face, 

and fancied she heard the autumn leaves, 
not yet fallen, awaiting a first frost, 
rustling suddenly outside,
beyond the stone walls and stained glass, 
whose images of Saviour, prophets and saints 
were dark and hardly visible 
against the night.