Marche Funèbre

Lento

Murmuring,

Under freshly drawn umbrellas —

They gather sparingly,

Reluctant to adorn the sky

With more polyester billboards,

That slowly grow heavier 

With every word recited.

They prolong the inevitable,

Keeping pocketed hands sheltered

And distant from each other,

As the cloud of grey halos hover ever closer —

Watering the fields of immortelles

That line the endless rows

Of stones surrounding the family —

Who give themselves over to the numbing silence

As the sky darkens slowly, and all the clouds gather

To mock the procession below —

Covering them with rain

Faster than anyone can blink.

Replacing their tears with water,

The rain streams over their eyes

Until rows of black canopies

Rise from the prairie,

And fill the cloudy expanse

That begins to consume them all.

Surrendering to the monochrome veil,

The world grows silent —

Turning everywhere, but here.

As the sillage of bleached flowers 

Permeate, and mask

The earthy overtones of the ruptured grass,

A temporary tarp liner slips —

Exposing the roots before the soaked shoes

Of all black suits, and all black dresses —

As they make their way

Through the low-hanging fog of misty eyes.

Stuttering quiet yelps,

They huddle ever closer —

Collapsing into one another,

As the dirt returns to the earth 

Shovel by shovel, spade by spade —

Finally allowing them to rake up the leaves

that still remain — surrounding them, 

As they try and understand the netlike veins, 

That shape and mirror their own —

Underneath that fragile, transparent layer.

And after all the rain runs out,

The cloudy-grey filter lifts —

And the once bright, blue afternoon sky

Now gives way to a clear darkness,

So calm and still — And seemingly 

Never-ending to those hypnotised

By its trance of dancing lights —

That flicker like little ships,

Amongst the sea of endless black.

Lost in cosmic noise,

The little pockets of dancing lights

Reach down towards the patched dirt, 

And lead away a single spark —

Adding another distant sun 

For those left behind to find —

Measureless,

In entity and scope,

To them

And on the world below.