ENTROPY

And to the tear stained mourners

Telling tales and rounding corners

Treading down a grave-sown path

Wading through the aftermath

Confounded in this place of death

Holy ghosts breathe holy breath

Scores of memories best left lost

Thoughtless pains my wrongs have cost

Sins stricken from the sermon’s text

Paid forward to the world comes next

The choir in synch begins to sing

He was the movie not the scene

He was the soul and not the grave

He was the mountain not the cave

He was the needle not the hay

He was the ticket not the play

He was the stranger not the crowd

He was the quiet not the loud

He was the middle not the edge

He was the leap and not the ledge

He was the greater not the sum

He was the table not the crumb

He was the artist not the art

He was the finish not the start

Amen…Amen

The service ends

The living rise

With gathered heaves and stifled cries

Emotions raw and thin as skin

This game of grief no players win

No magic spell holds loss at bay

Death’s rattle stilled

The piper paid

Once all the terms of life are met

And timbers of the fire are set

The dross of what remains of me

Will be consigned to entropy