Old Funeral Music

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

It had me picture a wake at night,
a burning pyre,
voices in lament.

The music,
the full orchestra,
stopped.

The shock of silence
led me.
My pyre spat,

the lamenters’ voices scorched.
I invented a dead man’s face
and saw his living conflict.

The music ran again,
quick marching grief
into the past.