We lost my Uncle while I was somewhere over Brazil.
The husband of my father's oldest sibling and a man I always knew as a farmer. When I was a child, he was one of the circle of men that would get a seat at the dining room table on Sundays. (Due to the number of people in attendance, the odds were roughing 1 in 12 that one could have a chair.) These men would drink coffee and talk, and a few might smoke a cigarette.
It was this man, along with his son and another two Uncles who would form the dialog of the first poem I would ever publish. I was between thirteen and fifteen and a teacher saw something of value in a few lines about cattle. I had liked poetry before that day but seeing the words in print left me hooked.
Today I sat with my Aunt. We held hands and did not stand.
I thought of the poetry in a wife's grief. It definitely would not rhyme.
"Dust to dust" as the burial words go.
As I was walking back to the car, a friend commented that I was wearing the wrong shoes for a funeral. A square heel, they were the better option for standing in wet grass. As I was cleaning them later that day, I was sure that I still sank a little. After all, I had held another Uncle's arm as we stood by, watching roses in the wind, thinking of him and of our own mortality.
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