On Hearing of the Death of Benjamin Zephaniah
7.12.2023
Because they told me in the neutral grey of an ordinary day when the
sun neither shone nor
set,
when the rain could do no more than drizzle, when all I was doing
was something I’ve
forgotten, I remember the moment.
Nothing rolled on a drum, no thunder clapped, nothing prepared me,
let me tense muscles
against the punch.
And because I had no one to tell I told myself they must be mistaken,
(that happens you know – urban myths, misheard rumours – it
happens).
But as minutes he was torn from ticked on through the unshockable
unstoppable
clock, time told me to tell me it was true after all.
And because it has to be true, the gathering dust moment – nothing
and normal till then –
freezes forever, and because there is less of me now, there is more of
him
here in what’s left, alive and everywhere always
in black and white.