The White Box
Foreword
During 1974-1990, I was pastor of Luther Rice Memorial Baptist Church in Silver Spring, Maryland. The following is based on one of my experiences. After all these years, the memory is still vivid.
Couldn’t help noticing you aren’t beside your
wife here. I do remember your elaborate
wedding just back in the summer. And now
this.
All tight around his wife a huddle of women
is doing all they know to do. They cry, they
moan, they wail, they pat and hug. But she
stays grim and silent.
You pay no attention. Your anger is unending.
I stand up front in my assigned space, telling
how the Lord is merciful and good we surely
hope. Funny tent up over our heads, those
who could get in under. Most are scattered
out around and slanting against the cold
wind, catching whatever words fly by.
Words. Words know less in times like this.
Where small wooden boxes lie quiet on
the ground.
The box is white like the dress she wore
in summer, walking the aisle with
flowers in her hands and a baby
already in her womb.
Baby dead now, some days ago in a crib
at the babysitters. Mother gone out and
doing something somewhere they said.
No charges placed, except by the
looks you give.
Keeping my eyes there in the Holy Book
is safer. Eyes tell. Yours are full of
fire and accusation. Hers sink deep in the
ground like the spades of grave diggers.
Ground where this baby will lie from
here on out.
And after my say is over, you move to
make sure about the matter.
Put the casket down in there and
cover it up, you command. No, not later,
I mean right now.
We’ll wait.
Man in charge hesitates. He never had this
before. They always do that after people
leave. Thinks this is crazy but keeps his
mouth shut. Goes and gets two in overalls
to bring their shovels and do it. Down
the little box goes.
Today they work before an audience.
Like I do. They keep glancing around
nervous but carry on as directed.
Cold time passes – slow as ice melting.
Chills enter people’s clothing with no
letup. Faces turn, seeking the best
direction, and find none. Sounds of
dirt’s arrival mingle with the wind. Dirt
shoveled in and pounded tight.
Tight like the twisted crib sheet around
the baby’s small neck.
Mother begins to scream now. She is out
of her silence now. Other women join in
while they hold her against falling.
The men stand together in their separate
groups, faces like wartime, forbidden to
cry or help either one.
I must not move to go until others do.
Unfitting that would be.
With nothing more to say or do, my eyes
study the nearby paths. They climb to
the tops of tombstones, then back down
again. They guess the history of the buried
by the reading of their names. Time
stretches, measured out in shovelfuls.
And then finally a last and final one.
A woman whispers how cold the wind is
and how a person might catch their death
out here. Heads nod. The cries of the
women seem less and the talking more.
The men are getting more courageous.
They stir and nod and look in the direction
of the cars. Away from the business
we did out here today.
And then like animals in a herd, we
move toward our cars. Cars that have
waited cold and quiet through it all.
They lead her to hers, as you
march to yours.
It is over now. My part is.
I put down my Bible and start the heater.
