Until the end of the wake

The funeral I wrote down happens today.
Or, does it?
 
They linger over the goner.
They eulogize him as if he were a twitching leaf floating in the wind.
“Is he really dead? He looks as if he were asleep?”
 
Their wails fester.
What if he could hear “Well done, well done, well done!”
at the end of the sermon?
 
What if he wakes up and walks again?
What if he wakes up and quips,
“Didn’t I look dead when I was asleep?”
 
The hard-to-attain human life is
as fragile as an earthen pot. They’re about to smash
that same old Buddhist cliché all over again.
 
Once a burial is done,
no one turns back at the graveyard.
Both the living and the dead must
hurry home.
 
How come the black hounds don’t howl today?
 
A tiny twig has just replaced a man.

Until the end of the wake