10-07-2017, 06:51 AM
When I Observe My Eulogy
Death has no dress rehearsal.
The day comes, and you leave
the speech for understudies.
Those who know you best,
never knew you at all.
There was always the element
that was unknown
on the periodic table of you.
When I buried my mother,
I was closest to God and a practical atheist.
Parents being stand-ins for the divine
in love, in wrath, and now only in dust.
There are tears and dry solemn faces
like leaves that crunch beneath your shoes.
I imagine my love will continue
to radiate like a furnace until the embers go cold.
Those left will find it strange,
how few things they remember,
how many questions they forgot to ask.
I hope I look as if I’d counted
ten thousand sheep and my eyes
simply slipped shut. Perhaps,
it’s all a dream
and I’ll wake.
Death has no dress rehearsal.
The day comes, and you leave
the speech for understudies.
Those who know you best,
never knew you at all.
There was always the element
that was unknown
on the periodic table of you.
When I buried my mother,
I was closest to God and a practical atheist.
Parents being stand-ins for the divine
in love, in wrath, and now only in dust.
There are tears and dry solemn faces
like leaves that crunch beneath your shoes.
I imagine my love will continue
to radiate like a furnace until the embers go cold.
Those left will find it strange,
how few things they remember,
how many questions they forgot to ask.
I hope I look as if I’d counted
ten thousand sheep and my eyes
simply slipped shut. Perhaps,
it’s all a dream
and I’ll wake.
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson