It was a dark and stormy day.

Not the day my father died,

but the day we buried him.

I can say that now: buried him.

Because the dirt was soft and loamy,

beautiful even. Because by the time

the cemetery welcomed us,

the rain had buried itself below

ground. I can say that now: buried.

Because my feet,

in my mother’s black boots,

sank into the earth beside his open grave,

and I knew a part of me would slip

under with him.

I can say that now: grave.

Because my children gravely

became grave scholars of grief that day.

They tasted its tang, smelled its cologne,

breathed deep of its soot and ash.

Grandchildren as smoke eater’s grief eaters.

The day my father died dawned bright

and sunny as any day I woke up with a man

my father would have loathed,

warm as any Indian summer Tuesday in a cemetery.

The day he dark and stormied, we were buried

in rain. No forest fire survived

that day. We traveled in a fogged caravan,

Cadillac of mourners following a firetruck,

tires playing Taps, my mother’s skeleton

hand in mine. We were en route,

answering the fire whistle’s

siren call, putting out the last fire,

no ghosts, no injuries to report.