Attention! (to Details)

After forty years
of service
to the country

my father was cremated
and in the urn
overheard the ceremony

in the year 2001
just three months
before the nation

which until then
was concerned only
with itself

investing, consuming
under purple mountains
travesty

unaware of a growing
threat less deadly
than cigarettes

unaware of a growing
tumor more deadly
than terrorists

for such pageantry there is no apology --
the chaplain forgot to read the eulogy.