I recently came across this poem by Andrew Motion, from 1975.

I particularly love the reference to ‘ruined bedroom’, which epitomises how poetry manages to convey so much with so few words…

The Convoy of Tears

‘When I came home unexpectedly in the mid-afternoon

and found an extra knife and fork still wet and glittering

on the draining board beside your own, I knew at once.

I ran upstairs and called your name in our ruined bedroom

but you had already left. Soon afterwards I saw Margaret

Thatcher taking over the Tory party from Edward Heath,

and one evening — unless I was mistaken — the dead body

of P.G. Wodehouse borne on a tank into the ruins of Saigon.’

Andrew Motion

CQ