An Irish Funeral Poem by Matt Greenblatt

St. Gabriel's Church this morning
Bustles with a life
That Istanbul's Bazaar
Never saw on its proudest day
The wake's line wraps a whole block round
With poor men in their finest black
Indeed it seems that all the town's
Come out for one last fare-thee-well
She raised herself, the speakers say,
Her mother dead, her father drunk,
And when her husband early passed
She raised alone her bonnie lass
(And cared for her five children too)
How unbecoming is it now
That six unhappy men raise her
In obsequious procession
From the altar to the hearse?
Some forty cars lined end to end
To see her to her grave
Most of all I remember
A bystander who solemnly tipped his hat