Commuting Home Past a Burial Ceremony

So many things can go wrong
For anyone in one life,
Why believe anyone’s failed?

Yes, the more usual text
Of the sermon tends to stress
Counting no one a success,

Since everyone gets a turn
At some point to dance with death,
But why count any life lost

The fault of whoever lost
Life or the person lived it?
The mourners crowd on the grass,

A knot mostly gray and black,
Some more or less cheerful, some
Looking genuinely sad.

Sufficient things had gone wrong
For the one they’re burying
That the body stopped working.

That it lived was its failure
And its success. One body
Could never determine this.