White Weddings And Wet Funerals Poem by John Tansey

White Weddings and Wet Funerals Final



When I was young,

And the world crisp,

Through the crystalline cold

Of November Morning

At the parade

And we were all caught in the sacred gear grit,

Grinding motion

Of life in abundance,

Pushing crowds out of bounds

It was always Thursday morning

and the endless invitations

in the mail spoke of

carousel steeds

and white weddings



Laughter does not carry like it did,

When we were children

we are grown old, now,

into our parents and grandparents

No cause for gathering

but for the formality

Of informing

On the sick and the dying

All the white weddings have ended

And now, walking with a cane,

I grow tired

of being mired in the mud

of wet funerals



John Tansey