Epitaph
� 1991 Clifton D. Healy
And the mourners pass by
Weighted with sorrow
And what shall we say?
And what shall we say?
While the mourners pass by
Weighted with hopeless sorrow
Would that it were not so
For the silence presses heavily
Like emotion in the chest
Constricting, suffocating
While the mourners pass by
And a young man
All in black
Stops and hesitates
Looking and trembling
While we ask one another
The dreaded interrogative
And what shall we say?
For his hand touches lightly the chest
The chest no more moved
By sighs of love or sorrow or despair
No more filled with pity or courage or fear
Touches lightly the chest
But the contact adheres and clings
And he would push life
Once more into the body
The body, dry as dust
Withered, unnaturally hued
And cold, silent, grim
Touches lightly the chest,
And looking, trembles
And looking, comes the tears
And what shall we say?
Old body, dry and silent
Touched by young body
Wet, wracked and shaken
As the mourners pass by
Aching for animation
Of yesterday of
Yesterday gone down the road
Of irrevocable time and distance
Weighted with sorrow
And what shall we say?
As the body passes by
Out and away
Carried miles to the waiting tabernacle
Carried far, far away
As the mourners pass by
Weighted with sorrow
And what shall we say?
What words to fill the void?
What prayers to occupy the space?
Where once life lived
And moved and breathed
The chest heaving, hollowed out by love
And filled, weighted with life
While all around the mourners pass by
Aching, dim, silent
Hollowed by sorrow and wanting
Wanting nothing but need
Weighted with hopeless living
And sorrow of life
Too dim, too silent, too hollow
To empty the void of care
As the words cannot be found
For the mourners passing by
Hands full of dirt
And what shall we say?
As the ashes and dust
Return to the beginning
While the mourners pass by
And what shall we say?
Pass by words etched in stone
Speaking finality, end, perfection
As ashes and dust return
While the mourners pass by
Full of deathly living
To look and listen
To hear and to hold
The living dead
Who will speak to
Ones who lived in death
And dying lived
To tell again to the mourners passing by
To tell again to the wanting of hope
To tell a young man
Who touches lightly the chest
Who trembling touches life
And to whom comes again the words now void
And what shall we say?
� 1991 Clifton D. Healy
In memory of my grandfather, Clifton F. Healy; a remembrance of his funeral