We laid him to rest on a Sunday afternoon.
He had left a note with some final requests
In his mind, of course, they were demands
But dead men don't make demands

except through lawyers
and he'd as soon spit in his hand
as entrust a lawyer with anything

Funerals, mom had said, are for the living
So she gave up as much as she could
For what he had wanted
And took as much as she had to have

He was forty-three at the time of his demise
And going on sixty
He liked to say that lifting weights was fine
But when you're the rod and life's the weights
Well, it does bear down upon you

His final statement was simple enough
Burn me to ashes and don't spend anymore on my going
Than you have to
'Cause I won't be there

Just exactly where I'll be I don't know anymore than you
Though you think you do
Perhaps I'll be the wind weeping in the willows
For god's sake, no chanting
Or saying of things over me that aren't really true

He said he would've asked mom
To take that Carribean cruise
She'd always talked about taking
And to scatter his ashes over the ocean

But, knowing her, she'd never be able to eat fish again
Afraid that some big tuna, caught off the coast of Australia
Had, in its journeying, inhaled a part and particle of her very own

He couldn't take that from her, she being partial to tuna salad and all
I'm too tired to decide what you should do with me
He had said
I was trouble enough while I was breathing

He wasn't right about much in his life, I'll have to say
But he was right about all the trouble he put Mom through
Strange, too, since he showed so much promise in the early days
Smart as a whip, he sure was--worked his way through two years of college
And by god got paid to go the last two on a scholastic scholarship

He was my brother and we loved each other and we hated each other
But what I like to remember are the nights we chilled out with some beers
And talked philosophy
Just regular what's-this-life-all-about bullshit

Thing is, he was always a little too quiet
You never could put your finger on it
But it just seemed like he was strung too tight
He liked things to be black and white in this world
But the world kept showing up shades of grey upon more shades of grey

Until all he saw
Was blackness
And no white to lighten it anywhere

I think that's why he did it
He did himself, you know, with a bottle of sleeping pills
Got all cleaned up, trimmed his hair and beard
That had gone shaggy during the dark days
As he called them

To blow his head off or cut his wrists and make a bloody mess
Just didn't seem right
Someone, after all, would have to clean up after him
After the mess that was his life

And that someone would be our mom
An angel of mercy
Who had welcomed him home after years abroad
When the darkness began to settle around him
Though he still struggled to see the purpose for it all

To me it's easy
Pick your foot up, put it back down,one step at a time
But I know he saw me as a plodder
Content to work for the weekend like the rest of the herd

He had layer upon layer of meaning and submeaning
Thesis/antithesis crap scrambling his brain
Something inside him just wouldn't let him relax and go with the flow

Life is one hell of a conundrum, I do believe
Simple enough to start from the most basic of building materials
And yet strangely complex in the building
Then comes man with mind and imagination, a shield and a weapon

Is it bad genes when man turns his own weapons on himself
Or, who knows, good luck 'cause the place or state of being
Being traversed to is something wonderful
I sure wish I knew

Even if I knew it was something good, though
I'd have to stay and play out my hand until I went broke
Whatever this life lacks in certainty
I still feel comfortable with it
Like fishin' on a Sunday afternoon and wonderin' where all the fish are hidin'

And if life gets vicious sometimes, so what
Fight back when you can
Run and duck for cover mostly
And you'll make it

Cuts and bruises heal, and hell
Everyone takes a lickin' sometime or other
Old man Time keeps on tickin'
And gives everyone a lickin'

But he had to go
And at least he got to pick the time and the place and the way
And I wish him to be a hearty gust of wind on those willows weeping