Thoughts Upon a Funeral

Pt. I
Red eyes, and all we’re kept here for
Is to loose our leaves into the winter winds,
Where tired pacers crunch their ways around
Our many-circled bark,
And see the places lovers left their marks upon
Our stout and aged trunks.

Oh! once this bark was tender, our branches much less brittle,
No rings abounded round our inner core;
And once, this aged tree was but a kernel in the ground,
Unknown, unseen, dependent on the spring rains and summer sun,
Mothballed, and waiting to begin
That short bursting of a stem.

And still the mourners cry, and still the “Ave’s” sound,
The air lies still upon the chapel-floor,
“The greatest loss” and “How will we go on?”,
Silently resounds from pew to pew, in every thought
The casket lies heavy as he is wheeled up the aisle
And the crying of a child
Breaks the tear-stained silence.
And the older men try to hide their sogginess.

Women cry, and children cry, but men?
Men are the rock, the solid ground
Which catches up the weaker sex when all the world
Becomes a floating mist.
What greater test than this, to see the greatness of a man,
When at his final curtain call, even grown men cry?
I hope and pray that in my final rest
I, too, will have loved enough to earn such love.

One lone man stands upon the pier,
Amidst the screams of seagulls, sea foam flying,
The pungent scent of rotting fish, the salty air,
The foghorn sound.
And through this mist I hear
The song of peace – and that of joy,
For though I mourn your loss,
I know that you behold the Truth,
A truth I seek to know, a face that here is bathed in shadow-light,
As if a fire burnt somewhere close,
But seldom cast its light upon Its brow.

Pt. II
A cold day it was, with wetting fog
And misted window-panes
When through bronzed doors your wooden bed
Was gently pulled by shaky hands.
And up we stood, as up the aisle
You went one final time.
Oh! Sadder sight has no man seen
Than that fogged procession up the floor
Your own hands carved and laid in place
To adore Him you see now face to face.

But what is it you now see?
And with what burning eyes and warmth of tongue
Did you reply to that dread call?
Was it a whispering certitude which rent you out,
Wrestled you from midst this earthly sheet
Which serves to separate the living from the dead?
And was it kind?

Or did some bird of prey drop, descend
Upon your fearing eyes
And catch you in its claws, wriggling from fear?
Did you dread the flowing distance
Ever-growing, never-ebbing, crashing closer, closer up your shore?
I do not dream to know.
No; yet somehow deep within my inner parts
I see that no such fear would enter you.

Pt. III
Now, some slow time has passed,
So many different seconds dripped dully into days
And weeks and months, and centuries from now
No memory of tired eyes and limping step
Will spark suddenly in the corner of an eye;
The winter rain and shifting earth
Will close above your stone.
We are so short upon this earth,
Then fizzle out.

Our lives are coffins wheeled up the aisle,
Stared at, pondered, shut, returned to dust.

I pray to be, like you,
A comet in the sky;
A brilliant flash, illuminating all around
With but short life;
Better that, than staring through the clouds
At havoc. Let me change the ways of men
For but an instant;
May I explode and, in glory, die.