Old Funeral Music

I heard the music once
a decade past:
a hard-paced hysteria

with the cold of winter thunder,
the strength of unceasing clockwork,
the peace of held-back tears.

It had me dream a wake at night,
a burning pyre,
voices of lament.

The music,
the full orchestra,
stopped,
incomplete.

This unsignalled silence
led me.
My pyre spat,

my lamenters wailed.
I invented a dead man's face
and saw his living conflict.

The music reawoke,
and quick-marched grief
into the past.