A memorial plaque to the poet Tessa Ransford was unveiled earlier this week in the Scottish Poetry Library, Edinburgh, the place she herself brought into being through her vision and enthusiasm. This poem by Chrys Salt offers a warm tribute to Tessa the poet and Tessa the doughty campaigner for the cause of poetry.

FOR TESSA – AFTER THE FUNERAL

I was dry eyed at your funeral.

The hymns, the prayers, the perfect eulogy,

I watched through glass.

~

But afterwards driving the high road home to Galloway

stripped of its ritual - I felt your loss,

hills bruised with heather,

birds weaving a jagged course

as if to join the tattered cloud

and make sky whole again.

~

I tried some words out in my head to fit.

~

How you would miss

the Autumn Solstice at Cairn Holy now.

the tail of your last summer,

touching the time clock of the standing stones

with radiance.

~

What I would miss.

Your voice, colonial with a dash of Scots,

passionate, silvery, mostly kind,

steel in defence of  those things right and good.

Three of a kind, now only Two.

Emails, postcards, messages,

thanking, congratulating, short, considerate.

I have one from the hospice on my desk.

It just says 'Thank you, love from Tessa' in a shaky hand.
Wasn’t dying enough to think about?

~

What's left behind when all is said and done

not much for most of us. 

‘The leaves by which we live’

swept up by final Autumns one by one.

~

But this, I know with certainty

The Library you built for us,

the books you made, your passion

for a life of poetry,

its power to change hearts and minds.

These are your standing stones,

your legacy. These shine.