At the Funeral of Wisława Szymborska

Nature could not have set the scene more perfectly. There was fog. The cold ensured everyone was bundled in their soberest, blackest coats. Snow fell softly throughout the ceremony and settled on the time-worn statues of angels and the brimmed hats of smart, grey-haired men, some of whom were presidents or poets.

I don't think Szymborska would have been interested in any of that. She was never a poet of the formal or the cliché. She would have looked behind the black curtain. She would have found a way, a point of view, that allowed us to understand some truth about what was going on without looking directly at it.

I scanned the crowd, trying to think like a Nobel laureate. She probably wouldn't have chosen to look through the eyes of the other poets – they have their own problems. Probably not the prime ministers or presidents either. Their job on these occasions is too simple: look grave and reassure us that we are taking the right things seriously.

There were no cats or other animals to turn to for inspiration. Only humans are crazy enough to stand outside in the freezing cold when another human dies. They don't stand still though. Nobody was still, apart from the miserable few whose job it was to wear a uniform and only move when the schedule of events required it.

Everybody there was doing something, in addition to just being there. Some people were sending SMSs about things they planned to do later. Some people were looking at the TV crews on their platforms, trying to see how the magic happens. Some people had guns under their jackets and were scanning the crowd for trouble. A man pushing a bicycle was astonished to find his daily route to the shops blocked by hundreds of people straining to see over each other’s shoulders.

Motives are complicated on these occasions. The friends and family of the deceased were there because they loved her. They felt grief. The thousands of spectators were there because they loved her work, or because they saw a crowd, or because they just wanted to take part in something. They felt curiosity, or sadness, or boredom. They stood and talked to each other and listened politely to the speeches and tried to sneak around the cordons to get a better view and thought about their lives and did all the things that people do. I think this is what she would have seen.

An hour later I was sitting in a café with friends looking through the photos we had taken and chatting about something I don’t even remember. Over the shoulder of the waitress I saw a muted TV showing the ashes of a poet being scattered in a grave and the covering slab sliding closed. I ordered tea.

Jamie Stokes