Wordie: Mortality: Comments

Comment by SonofGroucho, about 1 year ago

Sun, 10 Dec 2006 07:38:22 +0000

The Dead by Billy Collins

The dead are always looking down on us, they say.
while we are putting on our shoes or making a sandwich,
they are looking down through the glass-bottom boats of heaven
as they row themselves slowly through eternity.
They watch the tops of our heads moving below on earth,
and when we lie down in a field or on a couch,
drugged perhaps by the hum of a warm afternoon,
they think we are looking back at them,
which makes them lift their oars and fall silent
and wait, like parents, for us to close our eyes.

Comment by SonofGroucho, about 1 year ago

Sun, 10 Dec 2006 07:33:57 +0000

Men at My Father's Funeral by William Matthews

The ones his age who shook my hand
on their way out sent fear along
my arm like heroin. These weren't
men mute about their feelings,
or what's a body language for?

and I, the glib one, who'd stood
with my back to my father's body
and praised the heart that attacked him?
I'd made my stab at elegy,
the flesh made word: the very spit

in my mouth was sour with ruth
and eloquence. What could be worse?
Silence, the anthem of my father's
new country. And thus this babble,
like a dial tone, from our bodies.