Not a peep from those with spades for two years at least,

but they’ve suddenly found their voices.

Seeing them line up like apostles,

you’d be forgiven for thinking the deceased

was some charismatic influence of choices

with his perpetual advice, a jostle

of criticism and encouragement designed for self-assay.

Or was endowed with a distance

and stamina reserves that could last one too.

In truth, he was neither. He was marbled with mercurial ways

and a wonderful savvy that built an expanse

of lucrative ventures worth a bob or two.

Cross-dominant, but not dominated by crosses and Above:

left-handed, but was always right apparently.

He was careful where to walk along the road in

case, (not) Heaven forbid, he should fall in cracks, dog turds or Love.

Stony-faced, and stonier-hearted, he

went about as though the world owed him.

He was no second Christ, nor Casanova;

he was merely a complex kind of simple-

if he said hello, he’d said too much. He was cold.

So to watch the morons compete, gassing over

one another in efforts to wimple

his will, with their spades hunting gold,

was infuriating. But I was smirking.

I held information that would make amends-

take wind from sails, along with dreams of higher parity.

I was picking my moment to drop a bomb upon their irking:

that the mean old sod had come good near the end,

and left the lot to charity.