Feralis

On Ash Wednesday we are called to remember that we came from dust and to dust we will return.  Ashes from the previous Palm Sunday - what seems a lifetime ago - were made into a cross upon our foreheads last night, claiming us as feralis, belonging to the dead.  A poem by (whomelse but) Edna St. Vincent Millay reminds me of the keenness of death, a concept one cannot appreciate until one surrenders to dust all that is left of a beloved soul amid memories of "answers quick & keen, honest looks, laughter, love" when we know, at last, the best is lost.

Dirge Without Music 

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains, --- but the best is lost.

The answers quick & keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,
They are gone. They have gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.