Two Funeral Poems

After The Funeral Lunch

As we walked back from the heavy lasagna
and sweet pumpkin pie heavy with spice,
the red dirt lay in clumps after the funeral lunch.

This same soil will fertilize our ashes.
No tombstones or mausoleums for us,
just words on paper,
gelatin silver shadows,
notes lifting to barroom lights.
But the kids rushing through the old farm house door
are the only Ebenezers here.



Blessed Are Ye Who Weep/ Rid Dirt Scholar

Shuffling up to hug us,
one after the other,
with joyous back slaps on an otherwise
quite solemn occasion.

An old crooked hand, full of farm bent fingers
grasped a grieving man’s shoulder.
While the preacher, in his funeral suit, read from the gospels,
his head dipped in concentration,
like a boxer receiving fighting instructions
or a retired school teacher listening to a grown man
recite a poem she taught forty years ago.

So this,
this is what it means to believe,
to have the joy of the LORD,
his hand upon you.
This nodding saint, and
scholar of the fields
knows the grave will never contain him.

BAF
1.4.2010