Funeral At The Louisiana Bayou by Theresa C. Newbill
Their cries were blistered with desperation
as they passed through the gates of hell
smoky with acid rain and malevolent spirits
filled with disdain.
Gratitude's heaped high against a requiem of
silk robes and myrrh incense where personages
of flesh and bone couldn't hear the prayers of the
children whose tongues had stopped with time.
Night-blooming cereus blessed the funeral deep
in the Louisiana Bayou, blanketing the moonlight
on the river with unfathomable appeal while
transition shredded skin into crumpled up millennia.
We knew them. We felt the previous currents of their
submicroscopic energy reverberate with precise
sweetness over the electric lick of photons
that seared through the twisted core of green fields.
We experienced the fear of the craven as they turned
and ran, their faces flushed beneath the whiteness
of the moment, when the ashes of the dead were unearthed
and scattered in water rituals under a pagan's embrace.
Jettisoning waves canvas the boats smeared
charcoal against a blood red sky, while
birds sing through leafy encounters of bestial beauty.
I track and plow starved
for the sake of my soul, as darkness opens into light
with the memory of you.
