Lonely Remains

There's a swish and a thud,
The sound of wood meeting mud,
That stands out from the incessant,
Rain that falls in a rhythmic chant,

Over and over again, the mud falls,
Down the passage of soil walls,
To crack into little clusters on the oak,
Until the box had an earthen cloak,

He could still see the brass crucifix,
That caused so many family conflicts,
Glinting through the brown damp,
Throwing off light like a lamp,



.



Wearing his tie undone, and jacket loose,
The boy had turned into a funerals recluse,
And his cheeks made the rain look like tears,
Liquid collections of his teenage fears,

A young morbid curiosity kept him there,
With a grey wind whipping the rain into his hair,
When everybody else had left, gone away,
He was alone with the flag hoisted half way,

Watching as the old man threw another shovel full of soil,
Onto the oak casket with little sweat or toil,
And stared in bewilderment as the young blonde boy,
Plucked the heavy shovel from his arms like a toy,

Loaded it up with fresh earth, and let it fall,
Down past the steady and solid earthen walls,
To settle roughly and in an uneven pattern,
"Dust to dust, from the earth we came, and into the earth we shall return"