Cold and hard,
Powdered and dressed,
The stillborn thought
Of the chamber rests.
Death bells ring
For the living
Whose eyes and ears
Sift comfort and cheers
Of long lost years.
If only a day,
Not slip away,
To be held and seen
And smelled,
And shelved for any
Moment of grief.
Why can it not be grasped?
Why must it slip empty away?
The death house flames
From iron cast
Are coaxed and bruised
By sightless airs of passers-by.
What courage
Burns their flickering lives?
What lights the wax
But many masks of death?
James K. Richardson