At the Committal, at the Pasture

At the Committal, at the Pasture

There weren’t enough hearses

            so some were brought by ambulance,

            the same that carried some of them

            home two days ago to be cleaned,

            given a fresh

            suit or dress, something simple:

            a white shirt with blue trousers.

Sunday school clothes, what they may

            have worn the Sunday

            they were buried, and instead were

            the depth of Yea

            Tho I Walk in the Shadow…were caught

            on that, a fuel and water flooded

            motor pulled and pulled to cough

sigh cough sigh, to give up their very own

            ghost.  It was all shadows if you have to know:

            Look: eleven shadows. And all their mothers.

            Brothers.  Sisters.  Fathers.  Lists

            of uncles, aunts, grandparents.

            And nearly the whole town.  And nearly

            whole other surrounding

towns.                                                  And Cal

            leaning and wheezing, he can’t see, he’s

            got a man on either side of him.

            Not enough hearses.  But butterflies.   A pair

            of butterflies.  They hover over each

            casket and near mounds of flowers.  And when

            the minister says the Lord giveth…and then

I am the resurrection…

            well, that pair lights each eleven times.  

                                    And then they’re gone.

Old Joe’s heifer and two horses stop

            eating when we all walk by

            One, the parade mare, nickers

            under the shade tree close to the road.

            Busy flies near her nose

            and eyes reminds me

            not a single one—only bees in all

those flowers, only their single buzz

            and hum.  And those butterflies, the two,

            and all white.  I didn’t think about it until after,

            we all started back down the road to town

            and saw Old Joe leading the mare

            away, deep into the field, beyond the tall

            grass.   The way I saw Cal helped, led really, after

he collapsed, into a car.  The ambulances

            and the hearses were the last

            to pull away.  Slow as clover closing.  Those

            butterflies gone though no-

            one could notice.

And the grass kept swaying…

And there was no wind.

And the gone, gone,

            far away now gone mare,

and the man

who led her. 

And then the first fly.  After all this time

lit and bit.