April 23: Funeral

After the funeral

we sip sweet tea.

She'd have loved that magnolia.

May 7: Mortality

A friend recently lost her father. While a death is almost always hard to take, it seems especially difficult to deal with when the whole world around you is so blatantly coming back to life.

So hard--
planning a funeral
while tulips are budding.

August 10: Funeral

A character in a book I read recently complained that funerals should never take place on beautiful days, that the sun and blue sky merely taunt those who are in mourning. This foggy morning thus seemed well suited for attending a funeral, the soft focus appropriate for introspection and reflections on mortality. I was surprised after arriving in this muted mood, then, to find myself spending much of the service laughing. The deceased, whom I'd never met (I was there to support the widow, whom I know through work), was apparently quite the comedian, and the stories his family shared--they were laughing loudest--along with video clips of him hamming it up, allowed a good-spirited humor to keep at bay feelings of sadness and loss. The foggy landscape took on a different tenor on the drive home.

No gloom in this fog--
rather, goldenrod glowing,
candles in a dream.