Wrote this after a visit to Southern Cemetery... see what you think.

Grave Thoughts from Above Ground

 

They lie so quiet in the ground

While leaves and nuts fall all around.

The slanting sun, the shadows fall

The squirrels scamper, magpies call.

 

The shortest stories ever told,

Their lives in stone stand out in bold.

A middle name they won’t confess

Or all three names in Sunday best.

No shortened forms or nicknames here,

But smart and formal, year on year.

To sum them up, their date of birth

Subtracted from their time on earth

And then a caption, phrase or words

Those left behind once liked or heard.

Some photos too, all weathered grey

Seem to suit this autumn day.

 

The older ones are set in stone

But after all what’s left is bone.

Some grand, with angels, cherubs too

Lie standing out, the people who

Held mighty office, fancy cars,

Golden letters, flowers in vase,

And tended gravel, tinted blue,

Perhaps an odd balloon or two.

The money spent to show the loss

But in five years they gather moss.

 

And side by side sleep couples snoring

Who shared a bed as life turned boring.

The minor quibbles, bitter wrangles

Complex lives are now untangled

And all is peaceful, still and true,

Just ‘you loved him’ and ‘he loved you’.

The years of caring in The Vines

Are left forgotten on their shrines.

The feuds of parents, siblings, kids

By loving words are somehow hid.

 

Here lies a woman, man or child

But lying too the verses styled

By mason’s chisel, inches deep

Commit the body’s soul to keep.

Many never said a prayer

Before their parents lying there

Shuffled off the chains of birth

To take their place beneath the earth.

 

Muslim, Hindu, Greek and Jew

Now side by side, the old with new.

A narrow path a wailing wall

Combines the rabbis, mullah’s call.

Arabic, Hebrew, Mandarin, Greek

Sit side by side or cheek to cheek.

This peaceful world where all wars cease

Nirvana or a land of peace.

Shang-ri-la where we all get on

Get up and go got up, is gone.

Not much gets done, but war is over

Amongst the weeds, a life in clover.

 

So one day, maybe, dark and grey,

With whispers quiet my corpse they’ll lay

As teeming rain wets the plants

And coats of children, wife and aunts.

I hope they’ll notice all around

The beauty of this sacred ground.

And when they visit, not too often,

Remember me, and smile, and soften.

For death’s a gift, shall come to all

Where all is clear and worries pall.

We all must live and grow each day,

So at my grave, let children play!

 

5/10/17