Thanks to Rachel Devin at her blogspot: www.racheldevin.blogspot.com for her poem contribution. She also included one of my own poems recently on her blog. Check it out, and enjoy the poem below by Rachel.
AT THE FUNERAL OF MRS. SCHIMP.February 15, 2011.
I strolled a pace up the country lane,
Till to the graveyard plot I came;
There I found a hushed assembly,
Gathered to honour the burial of the body
Of her whose spirit had fled
To the arms of Heaven and the eternal Godhead.
There was the box in which she lay,
There those that mourned her going away
Yet rejoiced with her that she had found
Such peace as they on earth cannot know.
The trees in the yard moved like breaths i' the wind;
The plain folks' skirts made the only din;
The warmth of the sun made the winter's day
Seem like summer had come, and was here to stay.
And the high hill, that stood over the yard
And the valley, stood like a sentinel to guard
The people whose vulnerable hearts were torn
Betwixt songs and tears--which with her grave to adorn?
My mind fell upon the pine box once again:
Verily, I thought, did she lie therein,
With her hands perhaps folded upon her breast,
And her eyelids sealed in everlasting rest.
Never before, Death had I encountered,
Yet I quailed not, neither feared, neither faltered.
It seemed to me sweet, it seemed to me real,
It seemed to me to make life more simple,
And to make life more precious and brief.
And although I was touched by a feeling of grief,
Yet my soul was uplifted by a newfound belief
That to die as she had I would as lief--
Nay, rather--than to live without thought of dying,
An existence somehow false, somehow putrefying.
The service then began, and there were prayers
And there were songs full of promise borne on the air;
And the widower spoke of his wife's constant faith
In her Lord, Yeshua, who her soul did save,
And to whom she had gone but yesterday.
And the widower smiled, even as he did say,
That in her final hours her hands she'd held raised
Aloft to her Creator, in wholehearted praise.
Then the casket in the waiting ground was laid,
And the children and husband tossed into the grave
Each a pink rose that was their farewell
To the body of her whom they loved oh! so well.
Songs were bidden sung, one Amazing Grace,
As the men began to shovel earth into her grave.
It was then that I nigh sickened, my heart nigh gave way;
Then it was that for the sorrowing I most earnestly did pray.
One man came forth in order to shovel,
A man whose frame was taxed by the same ill
That had taken the mortal life of the woman in the grave.
For but a moment he worked, and then must relinquish the spade.
And throughout all, the woman at my elbow
Was praying without ceasing, her voice teary and low.
'T was a sight to soften a stony heart, indeed.
Oh! Would that everyone could witness such a scene!
For it makes such order of the rest of reality
That afterward one could not confuse priorities.
When the service had done,
And mulling about was everyone,
For a spell I stood alone,
Pondering all that had gone on.
I realised that this was the life I had been looking for
For quite some time, that which holds so much more
Than the fragile life I had been once accustomed to:
That of existing to be entertained, in lieu
Of the laws of Survival and Death and Love.
My heart sought Him who rides on the heavens above,
And He told me, "Yes, child, this is truth."
I have embraced Survival; that day I embraced Death;
And doing so made seem all the greater, the greatest of these: that is Love.
*More writings by Rachel, including some excellent book reviews, are available today for reading at her blog: www.racheldevin.blogspot.com!*
