"Funeral" by Garon E. Whited

Funeral

Midnight in the chapel sounds with bells so soft and slow;

The mourners all are homeward bound, while angels hover low

To comfort one beside the casket, dry as dust within.

Swathed from head to foot in black—her?  Or is it him?

But weeping all is done today; dry eyes met sunset’s sweep.

Now the wind is in the branches; the thunder’s loud and deep.

The casket trembles at the sound, and the mourner, too.

The lightning lances brightly down, a flash of white and blue.

Does the lid twitch?  Does it rise?  Is there life within it yet?

Or is it wishful thinking to call out “Hail!  Well-met!”?

Hands move swiftly nonetheless to lift the lid aside;

The shadows of the casket work to confound the eyes.

But the lance of heaven strikes again with a blaze of holy white;

The figure there is cold and pale, unmoving in the light.

The mourner’s hope fades with the bolt, but not the sudden pain.

A lover’s gone from out this world— and tears fall with the rain.

The mourner sinks upon the stones and leans upon the beir.

Full weeping, hands before the face, a veil soaked through with tears.

The wind is strong and sets the shutters to flap like awkward birds;

The dead one in the casket cannot hear the living’s words.

“I love you,” were but three; “come back!” another two.

Other words as well were spake, of need and bitter rue.

“Don’t leave me all alone,” was said; “rather I had died.”

“Thy peaceful death is envied, for I am crucified!”

And full-throated broke the storm upon the chapel’s door;

Shingles rip’d from off the beams, rain pattered on the floor.

The mourner’s veil torn loose, set to an airy flight;

The hat is gone, the hair whipped free—and out are all the lights!

But all falls still; the storm is quiet as quick as ‘twas to rage.

The mourner lays beside the beir, feels the touch of age.

And then a touch within the dark—gentle, soft and kind.

As once another touched—or is all within the mind?

“Don’t mock,” the mourner says, in pain and bitterness.

“I’ve grief enough; I’m worn out.  Just… let me rest.”

“Of course,” comes back the echo, soft and hard to hear.

“Rest, my love, and be unafraid; for even now, I’m here.”

In morning light they came to bear the corpse’s bones away

But halted at the sight they saw in the new-born day.

The body thought once to be dead had moved within the night;

It held the hand of the newly-dead—some said a death of fright.

Others shook their heads, or crossed themsleves to pray.

The sexton shooed out all but one, to help square things away.

“What shall we do?” his assistant asked, standing well aside.

“We’ll bury ‘em,” the sexton said.  “Put ‘em both inside.”

Ten thousand years and more those bones have lain all intertwined;

Pay no heed to mere flesh that once had drunk the wine.

No, regard the finger-bones, my lad, and the arms all wrapped tight.

No one would have done but them; all else had too much fright.

You can say of these long-dead two: they, at least, had tried

To live a life all in love—and that love has never died.