It’s an Irish tradition 
But it feels like ammunition 
Firing into my soul 
Oh, what it takes to be whole
When a person is ripped from this earth
And people just say, I’m sorry that it hurt 
As I look at the body in the coffin 
And it wasn’t for a lack of lovin’
That it’s in there 
All the people who care
Are seated in a square
Around the walls
A four cornered room and we walk down the halls
Lined up in black 
And the slack 
That is cut like a new shirt 
Won’t still the breath that we skirt
“She looks the same”
Or “He looks peaceful” and his name
Is met by an inflection of the head
The horror of when someone is dead 
And there’s nothing you can do to get them back
I remember when they carried him out and lack
The ability to hold the memory in equanimity
Coz it’s the last time I’ll ever see
Him in that way
What do they say?
This too shall pass
But I don’t want it to if the love don’t last
Though the memory is like a baseball bat
And people wonder what am I at
Haunting the halls
I say it wouldn’t be this way if the walls
Would just fall down
But I drown 
In the ocean I open up
In the name of love 
And tears they pour like a saltwater sea
Down my cheeks and cut a valley through me
Like a glacier that moved the ground
To make Kilglass lake and the sound 
Of the drumlin belt echoing calls
Across the marsh and the footballs
That just hang in the sky
Why did my grandfather have to die? 

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