Funeral Cortege Of My Father Poem by Bernard Henrie

Funeral Cortege Of My Father

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The black cars grim in the rain's steady drip,
the determination to carry father to his grave.
My father who hated cold water, downpours
and dreary afternoons without yellow sunlight,
but he often thought about the head waters
of the Amazon, stalks of green bananas,
the Panama ship locks and tropical diseases,
a moon gold as the mouth of a Calcutta dentist.
He liked stars burning in the Fox constellation
over grown with gold rhododendron blooms.
In the night air at our telescope, his wool scarf
knotted like a race horse tail; in poems he raced
over clumps of mud houses along the Zambezi,
he gambled in the illegal backgammon dens
of Hyderabad and Bangalore, he was roughed
up by the burly brothers of a shoeless urchin
he placed in boarding school. He married rich.
Satin tux, supper at the Claridge, green Pernod
at the hidden Fumoir bar; a new rifle purchase.
His life in hunting guides and the biographies
of great men, all the years beside my mother.
But his baccarat skills failed him last week
and he died reading his travel books, excited
to the very end, pleased to find swells of pink
clouds fetching to shore over the Oronoco,
his funeral boat of reeds receiving the waves,
the waves of saddened people of many colors
intent on saying good bye in a dozen languages.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Hardik Vaidya 06 March 2013

Bernard Henrie I was not sure how to respond to this poem, but then I thought I would respond with honesty. Scintillating, every word is positioned where it shines in its true light. Enthralling.

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