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GWEN KENNEDY NEVILLE
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Southwestern University
Georgetown, TX 78626

Weddings and Funerals 1988

When love and death
entwine their garlands round our lives
we sit in churches
solemn-faced, with handkerchiefs nearby,
white ribbons marking space,

and flowers;
with ushers overseeing,
sober in their dark, sedate attire,
the seating of the family in the sanctuary's far front pews.

We listen to the music of occasions
commemorating life and afterlife,
the celebrations of the living
moving in processions
with candles, slowly,
honoring those who enter last
and leave first for new lives.

We eat the food of friends
at dinners, luncheons, or at hone,
the casseroles in dishes with taped names
of members of the ladies' circle from the church,
and gifts are spread out in display, or wreaths adorn our rooms
where widows sit and weep
or parents of the bride greet guests
and families gather for reunion
in the shadow or the promise of the passing years.

Midwife of generations,
our ceremonies come and go
as markers of the present and the past
to place us in the frame of time
and give us that protective shield
for death and love that is our own.

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