Knight-Errant
By Paul Cameron Brown
A well-thumbed book
like a well-thumbed life,
"whilst you walk this earth"
yet nothing is "afoot",
as so many small boys
throwing stones through the funeral parlour
glass door.
A cake-walk? Being alive and interacting
across the face of the multitude is terrible
algebra running into unfathomable sums.
"Doing your sums", my grade school teacher
used to say and I still am. Whippersnapper,
learning lessons in a strange stamina
sort of way.
One of the multitude died last night &
is now "resting" in a large, Victorian parlour.
Even the walls grimace. I went by, caught a peek
at the assemblage chasing thru rain to see his
last hurrah. Look, "parlour" can be deadly serious
even if ice-cream and pizza attach dead-pan humour
to the term. Imagine, picking the last day of the
month to go packing. Finale.
"Going down to the sea in ships". Death as voyage escaping
prison confines of the harbour. Cliches donate dim glimpses
into the apparent.
One sees a lot by the moon.
Crisp, fall air and
leaves yellowing
frightened from their wits
to end their brief, balloon walk. Such
faraway faces of Eve and a boat
moored to a dock.
Crossing streets -
a gray, fusillade church,
knight-errant, breaks the night.
Trees chuckle in coves through wispy clouds.
Madonna's face in a shawl only it's not on the
stained glass window I see her. She seems
to be pouting. Ashamed of what we have to go through
at the end of this filth and stupidity? Restrictions?
Death lifts them in one heave of the casket. More illuminating
are the mourners. Dashing thru the sleet in brief poignancy;
shrill, old voices that knew the deceased reciting
what can only be the obvious. Leaden eyes that cast no shadow.
Hardly analogous to being "called home" or "going to their
reward".
More light is cast by the street lamp, the pale glow of fireflies
and neon signs winking-drinking waves like the fisherman's
cork.
This place is holy to me. A shrine. Night air with mist
collecting,
watching flames shuffle over hearth-stones; leaves mount a
glade.
The bitterest berry, flower to lily of the valley. A heart that
makes gravelly noise. Tiny angel spread of petals, no black
funeral vestments for me.
Standing close to the clock and thinking.
A luxury bought with time,
in every evening weeping in the corner.