Afterlife

My uncle Henry's funeral        
Was on a Sunday afternoon,        
        
Of deepen’d sky's updrafting clouds    
With everybody standing 'round    
   
A casket of mahogany    
That glisten’d in a patchwork light.    
   
I kept my eyes upon the sight    
Till lowered deep into our fate.    
   
He was her third, he always felt
Responsible, his mother's death.  
 
An awful punishment & weight  
To think he'd taken her away.  
 
And in his lifetime never knew  
The three days that she held him to,  
 
To nurse him, and then sank to earth  
So soon after she'd given birth.  
 
I reached out for my hand to place  
On edge of polished coffin's face,  
 
And leaning forward, softest call:  
"Your mother will explain it all."  
 
My mind a blank the long trip home,  
And when I could, I sat alone  
 
Recalling all the jokes and pranks  
The fam’ly told of Uncle Hank's  
 
We celebrated at his wake,  
The memories we shared with cake.  
 
But now in kitchen where I kept  
A silent vigil as I wept  
 
While dialing, calling up his voice,  
His message I'd repeat by choice.  
 
To hear him from the afterlife  
In hopes to listen one last time,  
 
To quell my grief. No more was said  
When service to the line went dead.  
 
 
 
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