ten thousand years/bright shining

A poem.

---

For Nina

you are asleep in the magnificent

pine box. a thurible, smoldering

at the end of a long gold chain,

dances above you, above you

on this day long in the making.

they call me up to sing

for you. Amazing Grace, the choice;

me, the grandson asked

to fill the chapel with sound.

I begin to sing

& think about the drive here,

the cool leather seat,

flecks of grass stuck to the window,

the warmth of the seat belt.

it was a short drive

beside my shaking mother.

I think about being outside

& how tight my suit felt.

the street-lamps weren't on yet.

a man holding a cup of coffee

passed it to his wife.

I was trying to cry

so I wouldn't have to later

but then again, I didn't cry

when I arrived

too late, too late

after the frantic phone call

that found me arranging pillows

in an empty retail-store aisle. 

I don't remember the rush of wheels

& the engine's groan as I sped

across Lowell. ah, but I do

remember the burn, the shame

as I arrived after they'd told

the machine keeping you alive

to stop speaking.

I think about the Egyptians

who placed their dead in ships

alongside overflowing pots

of coins, convinced

that their godhood was secure.

I think about elephants.

ten thousand years later, 

the song ends. I look down.

there's sheet music in my hands,

the paper & its ink dry as bone.

the microphone carries my breathing

to the back corners of the hall.

I step down from the altar.

clear my throat.

a bubbler out in the entrance hall

hums so loud you'd think it was sobbing.

I look at the coffin & think about ships again,

its orchid sails tucked neatly, the gold-trimmed jibs.

I slap a hand on its starboard side

& leave it behind. I sit next to my brother

& feel his thick hand, carved wielding

snare drum sticks across burning fields,

squeeze my left shoulder.

yeah, I say

as the church sinks into the sea.