Anam Cara

Voices at the Funeral

i—Body

It is an old habit to praise the light,

naively name it the mother of life,

let blue of sky keep heaven innocent

and green of grass quell the darkness of clay.

• • •

Their voices splinter; the silence thickens.

The covering of light falls from the dark.

I cannot move my lips or stir my tongue,

the relics of their hands fill with distance.

I know the feel of cold that slows blood,

cold that chokes the life of every limb;

ice has entered me; my skin turns blue;

things petrify in the caves of my bone.

• • •

Neighbours lay her out, wash beads of life-sweat.

True to custom, don’t throw this water out

but distribute it to plants she grew;

her hair combed she is ready to view.

ii—Grave

Left unto itself, the earth is one field.

Walls cannot reach below grass to divide

the dark substance of clay, glued to itself

in a dream that is black and always cold.

The remains of lives in timber interred

are lowered into this field of the dead;

old stones cling to each other in the wall

that makes this the loneliest field of all.

Under grass a net of soliloquies

strives to stretch into the fibre of earth

as prodigal clay returns out of skin

and headstones sharpen the mourning of wind.

A silver blade sped through the sod, three men

broke into this underworld yesterday

to open a space to fit her coffin;

they kept talking to keep the dead away.

Light smuggles in a brace of thistle seed

and the breath of the sea alert with salt,

the scent of grass and taste of rainwashed air

until the grave becomes a trough of sun.

iii—Coffin

The undertaker has a low, slow voice

without echo and immune to sorrow,

that fits itself to the silence of death

will not alert the mourners, lets them feel

secure in the script of the funeral.

His live palm of soft, pink hand lands on me.

I am described in clean and solemn word;

some cluster of taggled voices agree;

money is mentioned, I am suitable

to be chosen for someone called Déirdre.

Cold and bare, the morgue stencils her farewell.

Weeping heads dip deep into her cold form.

Hands enshrine her face, lips tip the forehead

as they inter whispers in her thick sleep.

A son sows a locket under her neck.

The lid is brought down, the light sealed out;

the screws with crucifix heads wound down tight.

A twitch arches her corpse against the dark;

its veneer of make-up begins to fray

odours start to gather on her cold skin.

From the net of soil insects creep, amazed

At a buried cathedral of timber;

patient pin-claws scrape to test the varnish;

from the depths damp invades my soft-wood base

above a cargo of clay pushes this space.

Once, my oak roots searched this underworld

and pulsing with light could feed from this night

a tree proud with branches, leaves and colour.

But what falls from light earth turns to clay

buried timber turns sour and flakes away.

iv—Forgetfulness

In the beginning

is

Nothing.

I am the oldest voice of all,

the voice of absence,

sister of silence.

Let nothing bless

the human head

that climbed so high

to praise itself.

It thinks

it is the face

that life

would wish

to take.

Nothing could settle

in a nest of bone

only images,

the pilgrims

that hold

a moment

out of the blue.

Centuries sleep

in the blood

damn the heart

with longing

for what

eye has not seen

nor ear heard.

Beaks of air

scrabble the skin,

stagger the walk

and clean

from headstones

the rib of name.