Dato Yunus

He didn’t learn to read or write until he was fifteen,

but the man today who is stitched in white and being lowered

into Wealden clay beside the commuter line near Woking

could turn a poem – though that, in truth, was not his calling.

He knew the art of encouraging, certainly. His school at the heart

of Covent Garden might have been its soul. He offered

to help me, as the tailor he was apprenticed to had helped

him climb out of poverty and reach the first

of his twelve degrees, at last achieving the top rung.

Magistrate. Datuk Yunus. Entrepreneur

of Englishness, whose own vowels puffed at the pennant

that flew its proud colour from his suit pocket, blew

in the silken rigging of the ties he wore, elaborate,

knotted as if to moor himself Melayu. We saw him

at St Pancras, the Renaissance Hotel, last winter. Not well,

but still the complete man, distinguishable, enthroned

with waiting travellers. Unintimidated, he lies

among sultans now. Beneath a potent Surrey sun,

the Imam recites a Surah. Volunteers take up

the shovels, repeat again their guttural final lesson.

John Greening

August 2019