Music For Funerals (old poem revisited)

This is my role in my circle, my holy manacle,
this ability to know the voice of personal
grief intimately well; the understanding of which songs will speak for us
the way we would if we could stop our voices from cracking.

When it happens I run through a list in my head
at once, moving to the CD rack
only after some thought.
This time, I hear Cat Stevens and Richie Havens;

the time before that, it was Des’ree, Sweet Honey in the Rock, ZapMama;
in the past I’ve heard Ornette Coleman and Frank Sinatra
alternating with Johnny Ramone and Frankie Laine, have laid on the floor
trying to choose between the requiems of Gounod and Mozart, and selecting both at last.

Sometimes I reach for the guitar, thinking that maybe this time
I will compose a song that will
make all future requests moot. It never happens,
but I still think of it from time to time,

imagining that all at once I will know
the song I have always wanted to find: the one
that, if played well enough,
will bring them back.

When I go, don’t make anyone choose songs for my funeral.
When I go, burn me like sheet music, burn me like hell money,
burn me the way children burn their parents’ love letters.
Lift any uncrumbled pieces from my ashes with drumsticks held like chopsticks.

Set them in a tambourine, take turns pounding it, set me rattling against that skin.
Ring me out until we all grow hoarse
and our voices become as soft and ragged as old clothes.
Make me into the song I never could write by myself.