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I see that
there are many things
I didn't know
before,
or care about
like
I didn't know that
after a heavy rain
I would hear the mud and
water squish and slosh
around the burial plot
as it desecrated
your grave
and,
I didn't know if it was okay
for me to tap about the grave
with my foot
patting down the
shifting, slipping, sod
or if I should call the
cemetery man to return and
do something about it.
"I think we need more earth here.
We need more dirt over here sir."
And I had no idea until
Tom, the funeral director told me
that I couldn't get you your pine box,
well, not on this short notice anyhow -
maybe a more expensive pine casket,
yes, with no nails -
with mortised and tenoned joints yes
that model we could "overnight,"
but not just a simple pine box like
you had always wanted with
easy access for the
scavengers to reclaim your body
before it turns to jelly, as you said.
I didn't know that nowadays
the pine box is fiberboard
covered in decorative blue
cloth with a look and feel of velour,
that matched the sky on that
day that God thankfully, respectfully, held off
the beating, belting, sobbing rain
until afternoon
so as not to melt the blue
cardboard casket
balancing before us all.
And I didn't know that gravediggers
could start their trucks in the
middle of a service, and go
grab a quick lunch while we
threw a few flowers, a blue kerchief,
two blond braids, super-glued wire-rims,
and an orange New Testament with
a Sinner's Prayer bearing your sloppy signature
into a freshly dug hole.
I didn't know that. |
