AND THE HEAVENS WEPT

PART 3 - THE STATE FUNERAL

By Thurman W. Adams

©2002. Thurman W. Adams

Monday, November twenty-fifth, nineteen hundred and sixty-three, dawned sunny, bright and clear,
a Presidential proclamation making it a National Day of Mourning, for a fallen President, loved and dear. 
The nations colors, atop the casket, were a painful reminder of the future we had lost,
and what would the world have been like; for we will never know, this being our unfathomable cost.
The body of our fallen President was taken from the Capitol rotunda, by military men, knowing so well,
that this would be the final day they would ever serve their President, the booming cannons did foretell.
They carried him from the Capitol to the White House, there to meet his wife, to St. Matthews, they strolled. 
When he left the House, his lady followed behind him, along with a hundred world leaders, the young and old. 
Never before had so many leaders of so many lands, had gathered together to honor a fallen man.
No one had ever comprehended the love and respect he had from the world, still now no one ever can.
At St. Matthews, the funeral service was held, then over and a last time the President, outside was brought, 
Hail to the Chief was played, as he was saluted by his son John, never before were so many tears fought. 
Across the bridge on the Potomac, through Arlington Cemetery's gate and up the grassy hill,
the President finally arrived below Custis-Lee Mansion to the hole in the ground, his casket would fill. 
Words were said, a flame was lit, planes flew by, guns were fired, taps played and the mourners left,
to go back to their lands and homes, all feeling the loss, totally hopeless, broken hearted and so bereft. 
It has been almost forty years now, since John F. Kennedy was laid on the side of that Virginia hill,
and each year hundreds of thousands of people, each year more than last, come to this spot and always will. 
John F. Kennedy had become the hope of the future to all men, women and children from all different lands, 
and now he had been taken from us, like the sands of time slipping through the fingers of our empty hands. 
We never knew how fortunate we were until we lost the one thing which our nation could never replace, 
and to prove this true, all one had to do, was to look on the average Americans' grief stricken face. 
How could one city give safe harbor to so much hate for only one misguided demented man,
for they had killed our President, a husband, a father, a brother, a son, the beloved leader of our land. 
Oh, the people of Dallas and similar other towns would say they had nothing to do with it,
for it was only the solitary act of one disturbed and misguided young man, in a homicidal fit. 
But assassinations, in America, don't just happen and not by one lonely soul,
for they are the fruits of an environment of evil and hatred, and a group as a whole.
Fifteen years later, the U. S. House of Representatives would investigate the Warren Commission report, 
and concluded John Kennedy "was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy" was their retort. 
Now that all of this has been said and done, what would the world be like today if Kennedy had lived?
I, like millions of others, would have liked to have him here still and for him, our lives we would gladly give. 
And the heartbroken angels in heaven could no longer Withstand the pain, which they themselves had kept, 
and the stars fell from the sky and the heavens wept.

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