The Inglorious Piper on the Cemetery Path

along the path I hear the music
pipes
and fiddles
and the steady rhythm
of a funeral drum
I press my ears to a tomb
and feel the music
course through my bones
and into my soul
and suddenly I can see the dead
a great crowd of them
laughing and cavorting
in the wintersmith's world
of snow and ice and sleet
and the are not the doleful spirits
novels and films have hinted at
but celebrous wonders
and they offer me morsels of food
scratched up from the dark places
to help carry my spirit
from the heavy lead of flesh