American Life in Poetry

It may be that we are most alone when attending funerals; at least that’s how it seems to me. By alone I mean that even among throngs of mourners, we pull back within ourselves and peer out at life as if through a window.

David Baker, an Ohio poet, offers us a picture of a funeral that could be anybody’s.

Afterwards

A short ride in the van, then the eight of us

there in the heat – white shirtsleeves sticking,

the women’s gloves off – fanning our faces.

The workers had set up a big blue tent

to help us at graveside tolerate the sun,

which was brutal all afternoon as if

stationed above us, though it moved limb

to limb through two huge, covering elms.

The long processional of neighbors, friends,

the town’s elderly, her beauty-shop patrons,

her club’s notables … The world is full of

prayers arrived at from afterwards, he said.

Look up through the trees – the hands, the leaves

curled as in self-control or quietly hurting,

or now open, flat-palmed, many-fine-veined,

and whether from heat or sadness, waving.