Family Funeral

by John Stocks

Hush
There has been a death in the family
Equilibrium has been suspended
And there is the usual intimacy
With universal fate.

I prophesy that clouds will scurry by
And birch trees will still bend with the breeze
A happy cocktail of children’s laughter
At the funeral.

There will be meditations
A careful weighing of thoughts and words
A gentle evocation.

A life of flesh and blood
Will now become abstract
And will live on
In the flickering fireflies
Of memory.