Elegy For Coach Davis
Like a racehorse, they took my hero out back:
Undignified and thankless
And left the train a-steaming
And all fell off the tracks
Like a wolf, home destroyed and paved:
Centuries-old love
Uprooted for a future
Where no sun lit the way
Like Lazarus, rolled away to rest:
Gaping, gorged the throng
Who couldn’t parse
What the weeping missed
What if it was the case
That beloved John had lied?
What if old Lazarus really
Stayed dead when he had died?
What if our dear Lord
Never really came?
What if Martha stayed there crying
While the Jews cursed on his name?
And what if He was there and did call
“Lazarus, come out!”
And nothing shifted, nothing stirred,
The dead man stayed his route
If, only after stillness
Was when Jesus really wept——
And the others blinked their eyes
While the peaceful departed slept
If, at that moment, the stench poured out
And laid waste upon the air,
Mouths covered, feet scattered,
While Mary rent her hair
If loyalty and family, honor and love
Were sold off for a purse,
And hopes and dreams, sighs and songs
Drove off in a hearse?