The Code Blue Waltz

She went code blue at noon
ranks hurried to their roles,
sober healers bustled
performed a dreary show.

I hope they gave a shove
through death's open door,
and didn’t keep her back
she’s nearly eighty four.

Did we want her to die,
multiple times?

I sob with sheer abandon
behind my smoky shades.
A fully grown man crying
all eyes turn away.

I don’t know what to do
I don’t know where to go,
floor nurse, she say,
“Call the Reverend Shay.”
So I call the Reverend Shay,
He say,
“I’ll be there right away.”

An hour slowly passes
and then a little more,
I pace with aimless purpose
just inside the door.

Finally,
Twixt pavement parted oaks
there comes a Polo shirt,
through sunny Autumn rain
of leaves upon the earth.

A cell phone to his ear
he commits a social sin,
forgetting the occasion
he chuckles coming in.

Inside the special room
he puts away his phone,
assumes his business face
and shifts to solemn tones.

“All is well my son
no need in feeling sad
she’s up in heaven now,
waltzing with your dad!

One two three One two three…”

“But Reverend Shay,
they were too ashamed to waltz.
And that’s but one in many
of their fear driven faults.

“My suffering son
release to God your strife,
everyone is whole
in the afterlife.”

“But they were dumb as cows,
so how can that be?”
In heaven I won’t know them
and they won’t know me.”

All of a sudden
up he did jump,
shaking his hands
and protruding his rump.

He shimmied round the room
with a "Soul Train" strut,
one hand in the air
one upon his butt.

“We go-dee go-dee goes
till we ho-dee ho-dee halts,
everybody got to do
the Code Blue Waltz.

Now Eva and Adolph*
that’s a whole other show,
they burn baby burn
down in “Disco Inferno.”

He boogied through the door
and out into the hall,
I listened for the echo
of his final funky call:

“We go-dee go-dee goes
till we ho-dee ho-dee halts,
pick your self a partner
for the Code Blue Waltz.

All God’s children do
the Code Blue Waltz.

One two three One two three…”


*The Hitlers wed in a Berlin bunker shortly before committing suicide.