Funerals are quiet.

The wind breaths

through splits in the pine brush

covering crows feet in the snow.

Swollen white tufts fall

through the flow of greyish faces

that dither like upblown gravel.

Soft blue needles

bleed through the silk white blanket

cloaked around the mourning crowd.

Winter trees stand

like black scars burned into the white.

Cold water trickles off branch tips,

denting snowdrift and a stray birdsnest.

The bundled figures stare at each other

waiting for something to be said.

Rainclouds hang high and brooding.

The funeral is quiet.

Only a child stands with frozen hands

clutched around a ball of slushy snow

by a hollow in the ground,

feeling cramped by the black figures

circled around him like a noose,

eyeing a fallen feather of a crow,

a black veined shard,

carved into the white veneer,
waiting for something to be said.