Last Rites

First coffins and now funerals. No, I'm not on a death-kick. In fact, I wrote this poem quite a while ago, and only now, finding myself rather dry and wanting of inspiration, have I pulled it out and dusted it off. And while it may not be as fresh as the morning paper, I still stand by its words. What do those words say? Well, have you noticed how modern funerals are frequently made into celebrations of life? Whether or not a man has lived a good life, we feel impelled to praise him in his death. This praise becomes simply the reward of living, rather than the just recompense of a life well-lived. And even if one seems to have lived a good life, who are we to judge? It is a particularly thorny issue, however, thanks to our trivialization of sorrow. Sorrow, we say, is bad, for it bears an uncomfortable likeness to depression. "Don't be sad," the preacher comforts the bereaved, "he is in a better place." Firstly, it is a conceit to think that we know when one is 'in a better place'. Secondly, we must allow ourselves to be sad, to feel sorrow. Sorrow is just as necessary as joy and each is appropriate to its own time. As the wisest man in the world once said (no, not Pete Seeger), all things have their season, and in their times all things pass under heaven; a time to be born and a time to die; a time to weep and a time to laugh. So weep in times of sorrow and laugh in times of joy. It is all we are able to do.


Last Rites

A joy is contraband
to heavy-hearted woes,
as if an artless hand
would offer up a rose

to take the lily's place
of honor at the tomb;
a delicate disgrace,
indelicate in bloom,

when sorrow is the seed,
uncertain of the end
as certain of the need
for which it will ascend

to supplicate the guilt
that stains a sleeping head;
to bury, to the hilt,
petitions for the dead.