Because I could not stop for death
Today, I was racing from one point to another in my truck when I saw a funeral procession going by on the opposite side of the street. In the town my mother grew up, Franklinton, Louisiana, if a funeral is going by every car pulls over to show their respect for the dead. Here in the “city”, we keep racing on by. It put me in mind of Emily Dickinson:
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.We passed the school, where children strove
At recess, in the ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.Or rather, he passed us;
The dews grew quivering and chill,
For only gossamer my gown,
My tippet only tulle.We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.Since then ’tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses’ heads
Were toward eternity.