Have you ever been to a funeral?
     The mood and atmosphere is frightfully odd.
Everyone there can be expected to stand with aimless gazes
    Statues clambering awkwardly on the carpeted floor.
They seem to be afraid of injuring each other
     As if by their own hands they have caused the injury of the      occasion.

Now, it varies from funeral to funeral
   But expect to see none of that traditional sadness
Or balling and sobbing you naturally expect.
  Within the confines of that place
There will be a muted, silent mourning
  Puncuated by sighs and fractured expressions
That ripple among the rest of the attendees.

The suits and dresses that everyone wears
    Stack up to a morbid fashion contest
And the quietude of the rooms
   Would make an excellent study hall.

I sometimes think it would be better
    If the funeral home were shabby and unaccomadating
  So that the soothing force of pain would come naturally.
    As it is, I find it harder to mourn
When the lights overhead illuminate gorgeous architecture
   And the faces of the those that work for the dead
Are clean shaven and compliant.

The best describer of this hallowed event I can provide
      Would be a smooth progression of a day's length
Much a metaphor for the trials of life and it's tilting toward death
     Of how one starts out young and ends up restive, in a              coffin's fold.
The day of the funeral begins in the early rays
     A few hours' climb from dawn
And generally ends as the rain from an evening shower
    Shades everyone's clothing to darker hues.

The most frequent misconception about funerals
      Is that they end on the same day.
In fact, a funeral continues for many years
    And all of life's march afterward is an echo of a burial
Branching out and experiencing the emptiness
    Of not having shared pathways
With the one in the ground.

Do you want to hear the strangest effect of a funeral?
   That moment when, years after the processions and spoken      Bible verses
You begin to tell your friend a thing or two
    And the friend is not there.
Surely the brain is advanced to a high enough degree
    To always, even subconsiously, register
The memory of that day.
    And yet it doesn't, and you will say something to the wind
And expect it to laugh, or sigh, or nod its head
   And you will receive the cold slap of reality,
And the absense of acknowledgement
   That seemed to make sense a moment ago.