Immortal Child

        Dear great-grandmother’s grave, surrounded by
        grey beneficiaries of her long
        gone bliss, and his, now echoes with the slow
        and somber intonation of the psalm.
        The witnesses to her mortality,
        displaying just enough grief and no more,
        uneasy in their uniform of black,
        observe with dusty eyes the obsequies.
        Except the restless twitch of well-turned wrists
        to check the time, they seem absorbed, transfixed.
        No stifled sobs; no softly murmured prayer.
        No mournful frowns; just anxious bitten lips.
        Meanwhile, the heiress plays between the plots
        and plucks the buttercups that flower there.
        The tot ignores the holy rites. Upon
        her face there blooms a Giaconda smile.


from Sailor in the Rain and Other Poems
© 2007 Denis M. Garrison