The air is thick and wet with human smells. People move in
slow motion, moaning and swaying to the sounds that come from deep in their
bellies. The gloaming makes shadows of trees through windows not yet hung with
the black cloths that fill the corners of the tiny house. Night is coming and
its presence will soon pile grief upon grief.
Peace will not be with the widow on this night though her
husband had descended into a peace wrapped in silence only this morning. Just
as the light reached over the horizon he fell into darkness. She would never
feel his longing stare caress her again. Now only a memory to be
stored in a mind more like her grandmother’s attic than a kitchen filled with
aromas and breezes on a summer’s day. An attic now so seldom accessed that the
spiders have begun to weave the webs that will soon become cobwebs coated with
dust, disintegrating.
The day is now gone and night begins to feed on their fears
and their moans become deeper as they each stand over their father,
grandfather, brother, cousin, friend, husband. The morning will bring Mr.
Walker and his men and they will carry him on his final journey down the old town
road, one last time under the ancient elms as the sun finds its way through
a canopy of green.
Lamp light fills the room, reflects off framed pictures of
sons, granddaughters illuminates his favorite chair. A red velvet antique impressed with years topped with a fresh doily ready to receive his weary head after a day in the shed, in the
sun, in the company of sparrows and squirrels. The side table holds his glasses
and books on the Classical Greeks and Ancient Egyptians. A book of poetry lays
open on the seat, reveals the last words his eyes drank in. It was Whitman’s
song he carried with him as he stepped out onto the porch and watched the grey
begin to turn gold.
His son shakes out a black cloth, lifts it high and lets it
sail and settle upon the red velvet chair. His mother wails and his father’s
brother begins to sing…
My rider of the bright eyes,
What happened to you yesterday?
I thought you in my heart,
When I bought your fine clothes,
A man the world could not slay. [1]
And then they all fall into song...
Go in Beauty
Peace be with you
until we meet again
in the light
[1] Excerpt
of an Anglicized version of Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire and Irish lament http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caoineadh_Airt_U%C3%AD_Laoghaire
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