Eulogy Poem by Kevin Young

   

    To allow silence

    To admit it in us

always moving
Just past

senses, the darkness
What swallows us

and we live amongst
What lives amongst us

These grim anchors
That brief sanctity

the sea
Cast quite far

when you seek
—in your hats black
and kerchiefs—
to bury me

Do not weep
but once, and a long

time then
Thereafter eat till

your stomach spills over
No more! you'll cry

too full for your eyes
to leak

The words will wait

Place me in a plain
pine box I have been

for years building
It is splinters

not silver
It is filled of hair

Even the tongues
of bells shall still

You who will bear
my body along

Spirit me into the six
Do not startle

at its lack of weight
How light

Kevin Young