Procession

The music came first

Soft and sweet, but building

To an unbearable intensity

A sadness that was real.

Grief that meant something

(Not like the TV kind)

These were not entertainment tears.

 

I watched from my window

Stretching up on tiptoes

Perversely curious

To catch a glimpse,

An echoed fragment of the death.

 

The hearse, a dull van

With big windows,

Was strung with bright,

Gaudy flowers.

I wondered, idly,

If these hid the reek of death.

Or if it was something

Too far beyond a mere smell

To be hidden.

 

Death seemed to pad silently

Behind the lurching mourners

As if he too

Were more curious than

He cared to admit.

 

I looked up,

Momentarily surprised

By the other faces

Visible at windows.

Heads hanging out to catch

A glimpse.

(That curiosity again.)

 

I wondered

Were these people like me?

Outside the reach of that pain.

Bystanders. Witnesses to grief only.

As I looked into lined faces

I realized that no,

Not all of us watched

With passive interest.

 

The coffin disappeared,

Vanished from my line of sight,

Though for all I knew

It was gone forever.

The bereaved, with shaking shoulders

Seemed lost now their object

Had been removed.

 

I did not stay to watch

Them disperse.

I knew too little of

The pain that would be

Engulfing them.

 

I knew little of grief

But I didn’t want to see

Their broken faces,

Bright tormented eyes.

 

I turned away.

I did not want to share

Their pain.

 

One day, I knew,

I would have enough of my own.

And I decided then -

I would face it alone.

 

 

(I would follow no procession.)