Late April

Six months to the morning since the day you died.
Another heartsore Friday full of sun,
temps in the sixties, a stirring in the trees.
We have put a winter in between our griefs--
between the gaping hole and greening sod,
between the wet funeral and the dry one.

There was a comfort in the numbers then.
We counted priests and limousines, flowers,
favors, the sympathies and casseroles
of those who came and followed to the end
in keeping with the common sense that holds
a strength in numbers: the more the merrier.

Late April now and now the number One
assumes its upright stance--the walking wound
that pauses among monuments to count
another season's emblements of loss:
one grave, one stone, one name on it, one rose,
one fist to shake in the face of God then go.

Thomas Lynch



*****************************************************



It was in the sixties here yesterday, but winter
has returned. It's grey and windy and around
40. For me, this would be a perfect day to go
to the cemetery, but I'm not sure I will.

It's a 40 mile drive there. I'm not sure
I can find the green plastic cones I'll need
to place the artificial flowers in to sit next
to the stone. I'm not sure if my stomach
is going to quit hurting. I may not have time
to cook my traditional meal if I go. I may throw up.
I may develop another headache. I may have to drink
a glass of wine first and then I couldn't drive
or wouldn't drive because I would not want to
be arrested for drunk driving even though I would
not be drunk. I may need to finish the laundry
or take the boys home. I may get a phone call.
I'm not sure if I have the right clothes to wear.
I'm not sure that I can bear to look at your name
on that stone, Dad, and keep myself pulled
together. I'm not sure that I believe in much.
I'm not sure I can think of a good reason to go.
I'm not sure where you are or what good it does
to stand in front of the white marker that bears
your name and rank and the lines "Home the sailor
From the sea", part of a poem Mom wanted to put
on the stone but there are rules regarding such things
at the Veteran's Cemetery so there wasn't room for
the entire poem. I'm not sure I even know the poem
though Mom and I talked about it when we were
filling in the paper and making sure we counted
out even the spaces between the numbers and letters
and tributes to you and your life. I'm not sure
but I think the best thing I can do is lie in bed
today and work crossword puzzles and think about
words I've never heard of or have heard of but would
never use them the way they do in crossword
puzzles, and I'm not sure but it seems like a strange
thing to call those puzzles--crosswords. Cross words.
I am sure we had none of those before you passed or left
or died. I am sure it's easier to say I lost you
than it is to say you died or you are dead.
No. No cross words, Dad. Just words about the dead
you had loved and lost and the mower you wanted
to buy when you got stronger and could mow the yard
again and the promise I made to you that I would
not talk about what you said and I'm not sure
why I told you I wouldn't talk about it but I think
it's because I wanted you to rest easy that night.
No cross words then, Dad, nor any or rarely any in all
the years you were my father. I am sure of that.


**************************************************************

I found these two poems:


Requiem

UNDER the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie:
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you 'grave for me: 5
Here he lies where he long'd to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.

Robert Louis Stevenson


*****************************************************


Home Is the Sailor

Home is the sailor, home from sea:
Her far-borne canvas furled
The ship pours shining on the quay
The plunder of the world.

Home is the hunter from the hill:
Fast in the boundless snare
All flesh lies taken at his will
And every fowl of air.

'Tis evening on the moorland free,
The starlit wave is still:
Home is the sailor from the sea,
The hunter from the hill.

A.E. Housman