Goodbye Brian Taylor - a poem

No room for mourning: he's gone out


Into the noisy glen, or stands between the stones


Of the broken ridge, or you'll hear his shout


Rolling among the screes, he being a boy again.


He'll never fail nor die


And if they laid his bones


In the granite vaults or iron sarcophagi


Of fame, he'd rise at the first summer rain


And stride across the hills to seek


His rest among the bony lands and clouds.


He was a stormy day, a wet peak


Spearing the sky; and look, about its base


Words flower like crocuses in the gaunt woods,


Blank though the dalehead and the hanging face.
 

Sidney Keyes (killed in action in Tunisia, aged 20).wrote this magnificent elegy in memory of William Wordsworth:

Brian and some of the athletes he coached in Christchurch.

I got an email from Neville Cleveland today. Brian was our athletics coach from when we were 14 to about 20, and we all have remained great friends since. As I have been overseas a long time Neville was closer to Brian. He wrote to me today, "there is no further news on Brian , and it is difficult coming to terms with the fact he has moved on unexpectedly."  He wrote of speaking to Prue, Brian's wife and how traumatic and difficult it is for her and their two boys, and he added "It is very sad , and my mother has also taken it badly. She will be 90 this year. "

Yes the giant Totara has fallen. Farewell Brian.