There's a slow drum roll over the water, the whispered rush of violins crowding in like hurried grass. I held a vintage Hughes in my hand, and forgive me if sometimes I get sad when a dead man's lips cry out from the sweet darkness of bleary heaven.

I know they've got music there, I know they've got a band in heaven, because I have heard them stomping and thumping and romping and heaving the quiet earth about with their dusty feet. I know that they dance, and I know they lean over and take sips from the river, that they summon and arraign all their roaring passions and hold them out like firedrops running from beneath their fingernails. I know, Lord, what they do in heaven, because your hushed shuffle of violins and vintage Hughes told me so, they seared into my eyes like firedrops and gave me birth, a gasping life from the brown clay, Lord.

I cry out from the sweet darkness of bleary heaven.