Walking with the Dead

\a walk through the graveyard

Walking with Death


Today, I walked among the tombstones.
Unfinished lives, living still but
rough hewn in cold white marble and
speaking eloquent saddened prose.

Moss covered, lichen lined, old death
vied for my attention but young
death too, took my hand and walked
sorrowfully and silently beside me.

Jonathon Kenny dearly loved dad;
missing you Davie, June and kids.
God keep you forever Emily.
my beautiful child and best friend.

A large stone carved motorbike
throbbing forever over its young
helmet clutching rider. May the
roads in heaven be safe my boy

Teddy bears, vigilantes against
innocent deaths lean dazedly
on tiny mounds that barely
trouble the uncertain ground

but abound with untarnished flowers
for the tiny untarnished lives beneath

Overgrown, unkempt sepulchres,
decadent and long forgotten
to conflicts too distant to care.
Jack Carny,gassed at the Somme

Together again Sally and Joseph
Allbright. Reunited in the sight of God
this day nineteenth July 1867
but miss you terribly mum

The sun lowers its head and draws
in an evening strangely different here.
All too quiet and oddly watchful as
I close the gate and go on living