Eulogy
To allow silence To admit it in us always moving Just past senses, the darkness What swallows us and we live amongst What lives amongst us * These grim anchors That brief sanctity the sea Cast quite far when you seek —in your hats black and kerchiefs— to bury me * Do not weep but once, and a long time then Thereafter eat till your stomach spills over No more! you'll cry too full for your eyes to leak * The words will wait * Place me in a plain pine box I have been for years building It is splinters not silver It is filled of hair * Even the tongues of bells shall still * You who will bear my body along Spirit me into the six Do not startle at its lack of weight How light
Credit
Copyright © 2011 by Kevin Young. Reprinted from Dear Darkness with the permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Author
Kevin Young

Kevin Young's poetry collections include Brown (Alfred A. Knopf, 2018) and Book of Hours (Alfred A. Knopf, 2014), winner of the 2015 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. He was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2020.
Date Published: 2011-01-01
Source URL: https://poets.org/poem/eulogy