Days of the Dead

Another All Saints Day, All Souls Day, and the evening of the thinning veil, All Hallows Eve.  I recently saw an old friend, a friend of more than sixty years, a friend of the heart who asked me if I would be a pall bearer for him.  Of course, I said, as long as you agree to do the same for me.  We have just turned seventy, and the years behind us outweigh the time we have left.  We speak of death more as a familiar certainty than a vague possibility.  We speak of our parents and their deaths and the terrible silence they leave within us.


I'll see you on the other side,
wherever that may be.
Wherever death takes us,
or leaves us, for that matter.

We will recognize one another,
of course.
What will we speak of, now that
all on earth is done?
There can be no recriminations,
no mending the past,
and eternity contains no future,
just time.

Perhaps we will sit again
along the river,
Or ride across Section Five
behind broad-backed Herefords.
Perhaps we will rock silently
on the veranda,
cold beer and the majesty of
the Sangre de Cristos in
the heat of the late afternoon.

I'll see you on the other side.
You'll recognize me,
and we will relive good times
and our best selves.