GRANDA
By
Aquinas T. Duffy

I stared, not understanding, beautiful trees reduced to this. I had known him. Hay-stack to his back, I would creep up behind him; had been lured to the harmony of his voice and the sound of milking. Blooming roses filled the garden, a retreat from the world. "Ashes to Dust"; the final salute to mortal flesh.

In the class I stood in admiration at his teaching and wept in pity for his fate. All sat in their black clothes. He lay noble and dead. Sorrow entwined with spirits, spirits mixed with sorrow. I was apart from this, observing it as a picture; Christ stripped of his garments. I knelt and felt his hand, cold, empty, and unreal. The wind made me shiver as they fired the shots.

Bang! He had crashed into a lamp post. His inquisitive eyes stared. I shared his grief, for pity of his state. It had passed, as the hungry worms wriggled into the flowerless ground and the mournful crowd scanned for bullets, souvenirs of a memory.

They lowered the box to its rightful place. I had known him and he was dead, returned to the soil from which he came. I stood in admiration of the picture, not understanding its reality.