Celebration of the life

"Bill" , 54, Kansas City, MO, passed away May 28, 2009. Memorial visitation 6-8 p.m. Mon., June 15 at Amos Family Chapel of Shawnee. Contributions to American Heart Assoc., 6800 W. 93rd St., Olathe, KS 66212 or reStart, Inc., 918 E. 9th St., Kansas City, MO 64106. (47 words)


I could not come and
be a witness on that day
they fed you into the
maw of the earth monster

The invention of death
was long ago but every family
reinvents it as well
tonight your mother wishes
it was she and not her son
that was lying in the cheap coffin.

Your children, grown now
perhaps relieved or still filled
with sorrow and a rage, the kind
that tears arms off Barbie Dolls
and pulls the button eyes out of Teddie Bears

Once again they talk of you
as if you were not there
their questions as impotent now as
they were that first day
when storm clouds embraced you
the tornado of grief carried you away
you journeyed ever-deeper into a darkness
the memory of it is buried deep
as if in a cancerous womb
an embryo that will never be born
but will only continue to fester
it is something no one in the family
will ever speak about

Now no one remembers the tenacious
pulling guard for the football team
of Milburn Jr. High School
Nancy the sweetheart from your sophomore year
didn’t come she’s a grandmother in Boulder now
No one reminisced about that
fumble in the State Championship game
even though at the time it was funny.

After the minister stops his mumbling
you linger now only in dreams
visiting your loved ones in their deep sleep
they meet you at the Mission Shopping Mall
In an abandoned art galley which displays
a photographic restrospective of your life
you, at five dressed as cowboy with
a black hat and two chrome-plated cap pistols
or in the team photo of your senior year
you wore your sideburns longer then
or the snapshot of you at your wedding
or that brief videotape of you smiling
when the first of your four children was born

You speak to them but no sound comes forth
only waves of dream speak
subconsciously they know
you only want to explain
but they shake their heads
their faces filled with fatigue, not pity
they don’t even have to you tell go
you realize you can stay here no longer

(353 words)

Capitano Tedeschi

30

Celebration of the life copyright June 16, 2009 by Jamie Jacks