In today's theme of live while you can, here is a poem I wrote a couple of years ago. How do you honor dead friends? Why, living today, of course.
DEAD FRIENDS
He watched the procession of dark colored cars
slowly moving across the asphalt.
The heat of the sun made vaporous streams of gas
lift from the soft black stone
into the air
like a prayer
to a higher power.
The mourners cried and laughed
fiddled with their ties and their hair,
as they nervously wondered
when their time would come.
Would the Church be filled with their friends?
Would they care
wherever they were?
The priest pretended to know what he was talking about.
Everyone knew that he was as much in the dark
as they were.
Everyone was happy it wasn’t them
in the coffin.
Everyone was sad that their friend was dead.
Everyone tried to remember the last time
they called his number
or visited him.
Everyone was glad they weren’t with him
at the end.
When they put him in the ground
he walked in the sun
to a place in the soft grass
and prayed to whatever was up there
that he would be ready
when his time was up.
Until then
he vowed
to make the world sing
and the flowers grow
and the people laugh
and the music lift
his spirits to heaven. 
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