The Apostrophe Blog
Grief. Sadness. Loss. All of these emotions lend themselves to expression in poetry even as we find ourselves desperately searching for words. Often such an occasion calls for the somber, elevated language of the elegy. This elegy has an important epigraph giving context as to the reason for this Buddhist funeral ceremony in northern Thailand of a dear, dear friend. This poem was published online in riverbabble 27 in June 2015. It also received Honorable Mention in the Dueling Judges category of the Oregon Poetry Association’s Spring 2015 contest.
Pulling the Rope
an elegy for Thaeng
one of the bridegrooms who wed on our Corvallis deck during the window
when same-sex marriage was legal in Oregon (April 2004)
— dead a decade later at the age of 44
past paddies of ripening rice stream
barefoot, chanting monks,
a saffron-robed beneficent sea
their loud-speaker sermons beamed
to the village where the bereaved
pour water and it spills
an overflowing cup,
rivers for your rebirth,
to the dirt all
offerings — the merit made
with prayer, with wais
of two pressed palms
and then the march,
processional funeral throng
of footfalls up and down
more than a mile
before the open place
for burning — a field
the crematorium with its tiled
straw-swept steps
awaits
your casket following behind
on a flatbed tied to
so many people walking
so many people pulling
the ropes, their bodies bringing
you along, your final
journey to the new — begin
with smoke, arise,
disperse.
The public domain image above is of the native wildflower, prairie smoke. It blooms in the spring. This photo was taken by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at the Cornell Waterfowl Production Area in the Kulm Wetland Management District, North Dakota.
Interests: Reading, writing, not arithmetic. The art and craft of poetry. Photography. Vegetable and flower gardening especially heirloom bulbs and dahlias. Movies in real theatres. Theatre on real stages. Art in real galleries. Crossword puzzles and, of course, Wordle. Singer-songwriters like Aimee Mann and Patti Griffin. All kinds of music especially 1930s jazz. Venice, Italy! The Dude abides.
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