I walk among the dead
I walk among the dead. Trimmed and untrimmed graves,symbols I think are Gaelic, and hosts of Guardian Angels,some with heads lopped off, chipped smocks, shattered wings.The morning sun flings light across the sea and, to the eye,each cross is turned to black. Here lie the much belovedunknown wives, adored fathers, children gone too soon,vaults and edifices where family feuds subside.Six mostly intact angels stand beside one pathway.All their heads are bowed but this one presses flowersto her belly, this one scatters blossoms from the basketof her gown, this one's arms are folded on her breasts,and this one's palms are lightly pressed in prayer.This one shelters one child, this one two. And on this last,brown head twitching, a sparrow has momentarily perched.
–Brook Emery
Dorothy enjoys a funeral
The lovely phrases roll off our Vicar's tongue:all flesh is grass —isn't it though? Clippings on Val's compost heap,green and steaming in the rainy times,brown chaff in a dry summer.Though worms destroy this body —the gardener in her liked the thought.
Now her son is buttering parsnips in a eulogy:Val's generosity, her merry laugh, her cooking.Awful to think of her lying in that polished box,plump though somewhat wasted.It's a mercy, someone's bound to say,yet tearful Bill may not agree.Mercy should have operated eighteen months ago,when we prayed for an end to it all.
The Lord is my shepherd, and next thing we are walkingthrough the valley of the shadow of death,Val's death, then it'll be Bill's, and soon enough, my own.
Lo! I tell you a mystery, says the reader,We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,at the last trumpet.Beautiful, especially when sung.Yet I doubt if she'll enjoy that trumpet blast.Turn down the volume! she will demand,and as for being made imperishable,she didn't believe in stuff like long-life milk.
I couldn't fault the Vicar's homily, except for being bland,one thing Val was not accused of.Death, where exactly is thy sting?The words lull me gently, and the music too:a grand-daughter playing solo flute,and we sing Val's favourite hymn,I heard the voice of Jesus sayCome unto me and rest.For once, she's resting now.
I gaze at, and through, the stained glasswith Jesus triumphant on the cross.How odd, Val would say as we did the brass —the triumph came well after the cross.Now God is asked to graciously deal with those who mourn.How could he not? Yet some will