Another Bloody Funeral Poem (In Memory, AM)

How can we try to appraise a life
Like every life a life distinct
Like every life like every other
Stuffed with friends and stuffed with children
Zigged and zagged across the country?

And the wailing call and the wailing holler
Deep into the night

And how can we conjure up a body
Creaking a lot but uncomplaining
Eyes on a permanent quizzical rake
And a bit Mutt and Jeff in the one bad ear
And not too brilliant in the other?

And the liquid wooden river creaking
Deep into the night

How can any of us gauge a mind
Unstinting in both praise and censure
Loud in barroom provocation
Generous with disagreement
Yet infused with grumpy kindness?

And the smell of the herbs in the wine of Provence
Deep into the night

How can we try to imagine a voice
Responding to his own demise
Decrying his accomplishments
And measuring his legacy
In clothes - at last! - to take to Oxfam?

And the stilled thoughts like a walled-up haiku
Deep into the night

Can we succeed in reaching a soul
Dogmatically ambiguous
Chained to the future round the bend
Like someone locked inside a pub
Ambivalent with fear and wonder?

And the hand reaching for a hidden light switch
Deep into the night

Five questions with one answer:
We can't
For that is not our task here
Our job is just to energise our thoughts to say goodbye
So we think
Out, out with the too-bright light
(Like lamps in a public bar extinguished
On an unintentional burglar)
Out, out with the too-loud sound
(Like a tenor sax laid down at last
By a dirty-finger-nailed musician
Gasping for a well-earned break
Forever)

And we reach out from our prison
To the one who got away
And we try to get much closer
And we're almost certain someone hears
But our penitential call receives no holler in response
But out there
Someone holds his council
Weighs his options
Thinks
And still within the gloom
Two eyes twinkle