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The Magic Casket
‘Twas in the local funeral home
__The miracle occurred,
As ticking clock hands kissed at noon
__And restless spirits stirred…
A gasp, a creak, a quake, a crash,
__A spectral puff of dust;
A ghostly face as gray as ash,
__An icy, eerie hush.
A casket caught a toiling guy
__Who’d plunged right through the ceiling.
This earnest soul (not meant to die)
__Left dazed morticians reeling…
He nodded, stretched, inhaled a breath,
__Leapt out and strode away—
Risen from resplendent depths
__To live another day…
A sight that those who deal in grief
__Won’t witness very often:
A godsent gift of grave relief—
__A life-preserving coffin.
The moral of the tale is this:
__If slogging in life’s attic
You fall from lofty heights don’t miss
__Salvation’s box of magic!
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Susan Jarvis Bryant has poetry published on Lighten Up Online, Snakeskin, Light, Sparks of Calliope, and Expansive Poetry Online. She also has poetry published in TRINACRIA, Beth Houston’s Extreme Formal Poems anthology, and in Openings (anthologies of poems by Open University Poets in the UK). Susan is the winner of the 2020 International SCP Poetry Competition, and has been nominated for the 2022 Pushcart Prize.
Inspiring poem to start my Sunday.
Best regards,
Paddy
Thank you, Paddy!
This is a marvelous poem, Susan! That this is a true story of a recent event which you witnessed is astounding! This is a rare intersection of the macabre and the inspiring and you manage to capture it poetically with a drop of the jaw, a wink of the eye and a flutter of the heart. Thank you for sharing this meaningful (if unexpected) life lesson!
Brian, thank you very much indeed! I wrote this poem for the staff at the funeral home I work for, but thought I’d share it for its pure joy… it’s not often I witness someone rise from a casket to complete a day’s work. I believe I witnessed a mini miracle. 🙂
A life-saving casket?! Such an amazing event but even more inspiring life lesson brought to our attention in beautifully encapsulated exquisite poetry.
Roy, thank you very much for your lovely comment. It was a life-saving casket… one of my favorite designs with a cushiony interior, a flock of birds together with the words “Going Home” etched upon it… I’m glad our tech man got to go home unscathed that night.
Susan, what a hilarious offering. I don’t laugh easy, but this one definitely did the trick! What a whimsical little rascal you can be… 🙂 “Hi’ to Michael –
Mark, there’s nowt as eye-opening as the occurrences in a funeral home … although, I will admit to my heart skipping a beat that day. I’ve seen plenty in my years of working there, but nothing as outrageously spectacular as that. LOL
Humorous, and with a message. Did this actually happen here in Texas?
Phil, thank you! And, yes, it actually happened here in Texas. I’d thought I’d seen everything there was to see within those walls… apparently not.
I love this! How funny, that the coffin saved his life. It’s just not possible to make things like this up, because truth really is stranger than fiction. My favorite part is stanza 5. The concept of a life-preserving coffin… I also enjoyed the line, “As ticking clock hands kissed at noon.”
I bet when the guy fell through the roof and saw coffin, he thought it was going to be his shortly. It reminds me of some lines from Georges Brassens (my translation):
“So, to the sky and earth longstanding,
Someday I’ll have to bid farewell.
Is the great oak or pine still standing
That will become my coffin cell?”
Josh, thank you for your generous comment. You’re right – truth really is stranger than fiction! I smiled when I wrote the life-preserving coffin line. It really was “a godsent gift of grave relief”. Thank you too for those magnificent lines from your Georges Brassens translation… you have really fired my interest in this guy.
You’re welcome! I’m glad I could fire your interest in him.
Here’s a translation of the same song by Eric Butterworth: http://www.projetbrassens.eclipse.co.uk/pages/transletestamentrhy.html
Here are some more of his lyrics with free-verse translations and footnotes: https://brassenswithenglish.blogspot.com/
Warning: some of these are a bit off-color, a bit like the samples of John Wilmot we’ve seen here: https://classicalpoets.org/2022/10/20/an-essay-on-john-wilmot-earl-of-rochester-by-joseph-s-salemi/ (Just as you and I rebel against today’s satanic culture in our writing, he rebelled against the puritanical, bourgeois culture that existed in France in the 1950s.)
Josh, thank you very much for this. I’ll definitely be link-clicking today.
Hello Susan,
I found a lot to enjoy in this poem. I found the hyperbole of Kipling, the humor of Lear, and low and behold, one of Aesop’s morals in the end. This is a memorable and enjoyable one for me. Congratulations on such a fun and well written poem.
Robert
Hello Robert. What a wonderful comment. I will admit to being a tad worried about this poem being a tad too whimsical for the site, but I needn’t have worried… your words have delighted me. Thank you very much indeed!
Great story, thanks for the humor! Did this incident occur in Texas?
Yael, I’m thrilled you enjoyed the story. I know the entire thing sounds inconceivable, but yes, it really did occur… in the funeral home I work at. It was a great outcome to a potentially disastrous situation, and I simply had to share it the only way I know how!
Susan, this is so clearly funny that the depth of your Aesop-like ending is not immediately obvious. It interprets the incident as a joke with just a tiny reminder applicable to daily work, falls along the way, and the prospect of salvation seeming so much like magic that it could be ignored. Isn’t salvation “a godsent gift of grave relief”? I thought that was going to be the best line before I read the double-entendre moral.
I’m ready for this today. Last night my husband and daughter went to see “Peter Pan Goes Wrong” while I stayed home for reading and writing time. But the cat played games for nine hours after she should have come in. I got nothing done while Zoe zoomed about for a dangerous summer evening. She was finally exhausted enough to be saved from coyotes.
Margaret, I am thrilled you enjoyed my poem, especially in the wake (pun intended) of such a traumatic night. I’m glad to hear that the naughty Zoe is safe and sound, and I hope she knows how lucky she is to have a family who cares for her. King George Lionel has given us a few scares in his lifetimes (I think he’s down to his last one), so I can appreciate exactly where you’re coming from!
For some reason this took me a couple of reads. I was a bit preoccupied first time, but got there the second.
What a strange happening. He’s lucky the coffin didn’t close on him when he fell in it.
A fun read.
Paul, I can quite appreciate the ‘couple of reads’ before getting your head around the poem aspect… I was there when it happened and I had the same problem. I’ve always thought the huge, heavy, luxury-lined caskets rather ostentatious and somewhat distasteful in this age where the biodegradable coffin is lauded and applauded… I have now brushed that ridiculous thought aside. 😉
This was awesome – truly. I burst out laughing when I saw the opening lines in my in-box and of course the rest of it was an absolute delight. What’s more amazing is that it’s based on a real incident! Thanks as always for keeping us amused and informed.
Rohini, I’m thrilled you had as much fun reading this as I did writing it. I was laughing as I marveled at the fortune of falling into a plush and cushioned, deluxe casket instead of on a hard, concrete floor… what a stroke of luck! This poem serves to prove that a poet’s inspiration can even be found in a dead-end job. 😉
Not for you, Susan, to hide your light under a bushel. You fully understand that any intimations of truth you have must be expressed, lest your very soul be imperiled. That’s something like what Jordan Peterson would say. As long as people still read, your light will stand like a beacon of insight and good sense. But don’t expect too much — Shelley was wrong, and Auden was right.
“Shelley was wrong and Auden was right?” I beg to differ: https://classicalpoets.org/2023/02/16/poetic-influence-by-joshua-c-frank/
You may differ, Joshua, but you shouldn’t beg. Show me a poem that has filled a belly or a hollow leg, and give me more than anecdotal evidence. People believe what they want to believe, and that goes for me, too.
Changes like I’ve described more than qualify for poetry doing something.
But if you just believe things because you want to rather than because they’re true, then what you’re telling me is that you like your fantasies better than reality, in which case I would waste my breath to say any more.
C.B., it’s always lovely to hear from you! Thank you! As for Shelley V Auden… time will tell. Watch this space.
Enjoyed very much, Susan. I wonder if the experience will point him in a grateful direction. In any case, I’m sure he would love your poem.
Thank you very much, jd. The fortunate gentleman concerned was very grateful indeed. He knew exactly what could have happened and couldn’t believe his luck. We both agreed it was a minor miracle… and that our exquisitely crafted caskets are the best in Texas!
Great fun, Susan. Rhythmic aplomb and all!