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Judy Gahagan

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Maestri of the Processional

I think I’d always been waiting for them
waiting for the intensity of their ritual deportment
for the slow beat of their gait, obsequies
of expressionlessness, as they ushered us
(uncouthly alive) into the limousine.
Theirs was the protocol of the deepest bow
the choreography of black silk hats
mimed drama of unutterable humility
as the hearse took precedence, turned, adagio
into the commonplace of traffic.

I knew already that to sit upright behind the dark glass
of the limousine following the hearse
would be a privilege of protocol, and of perspective:
to look out on those too, too familiar streets
of life at its most typical, as if already dead.
Sometimes, on such a day, in the full of life
among people forgetting their shadows
I’ve looked out, briefly half-alive, invisible
mute and silent behind my own dark glass.

I’ve waited for their funeral gestures
those acolytes in black to escort us
through the realms of the ceremonial
past the cardboard scenes of the shopping mall
to the dark heart of a solstice, the slow fall
into silence. Don’t they promise the abyss
the black velvet rose, the leafless lunar lily
on watch and waiting for us?

 


Judy Gahagan has published poetry, prose and translations in a number of magazines; a volume of short stories, two pamphlets and a volume of poetry. She runs courses in psychology and poetry and is currently busy on a novel about dream research.

 

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