Chapter IX: At a Friend's Burial

They put him away in the earth
a horrible July afternoon
under a sun of fire.

A step from the open grave
grew roses with rotting petals
among geraniums of bitter fragrance,
red-flowered. The sky
a pale blue. A wind
hard and dry.

Hanging on the thick ropes,
the two gravediggers
let the coffin heavily
down into the grave.

It struck the bottom with a sharp sound,
solemnly, in the silence.

The sound of a coffin striking the earth
is something unutterably solemn.

The heavy clods broke into dust
over the black coffin.

A white mist of dust rose in the air
out of the deep grave.

And you, without a shadow now, sleep.
Long peace to your bones.
For all time
you sleep a tranquil and a real sleep.