Foolish Things

Elizabeth Taylor apparently wants her ashes scattered in the grounds of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff because they are naming a new theatre after Richard Burton.

She’ll take her ashes when her lifeblood pales
on an airline ticket to romantic Wales.
Oh her heart must have wings
if every time a Welshman sings she’s reminded of you.

A tinkling piano in the adjacent studio,
those stumbling students wanting careers in radio.
What a fresh dole cheque brings.
These foolish things will remind her of you.

A wind-bent daffodil on the first of March,
pints of beer and a proscenium arch.
Oh how the ghost of her clings
to these foolish things that remind her of you.

(after Holt Marvell’s These Foolish Things)