I Went To a Funeral Today

I went to a funeral today
One of those quiet ones
With the pastor’s voice drawling
In strategically placed pauses to place
Emphasis
On a word or a phrase
And while the family came up to speak
The pastor sat
Behind the wall of flowers
Hands folded in his lap
And his head cocked to the side
In dutiful reverence to
The dead.

We sat in the front
But if I turned I would see
A see of grey hair
And faces deep with canyons
Tracing the places each had been
Each had seen with their heavy set eyes
And I couldn’t help but wonder
If they thought as they sat
There in that church that was cold
Of the frozen earth outside
And if they wondered
Their horrific thoughts enlivened
By the atmosphere of sadness
What that earth would feel like
Nestling in the crevices
Of their own ancient and sagging
Skin.

I shook the hand of an old man today
His grasp firm but trembling
And as he looked in my eyes
he squinted a little
So he could pretend for a moment
That he was young like me
But eighteen years past the day of his birth
So far from the cold clutch
Of the earth and its jaws
Opening up in an eternal embrace.

And thought the mouth is wide
It is silent
Where in in life
Each day is a new harmony
To the strain one had been singing
Death is the eternal rest
The melody
Abruptly
Ending
And as I stood next to the man
Who shook my hand
And we sang together
Making harmony as the living do
And we came to the closure of a hymn
That everyone knows
But I couldn’t help but think
Of what it means to say
Amen.