How beautiful was it
To be among the dead!
When today I hovered over the graves.
The graveyard was so beautiful
No more in use
Overgrown with disuse
The thick lush bushes
Growing over the stones
Beneath which lie the dead
More than a century and half old
Were the graves.
An Edward, a Margaret,
Little children, of unfortunate parents, dead,
‘Our dear, darling child’,
One epitaph read.
Multitudes of graves
Wide wild graveyard
Which has silently died its own death.
Still a haunting charm draws me to it
Like a beloved one you want to meet
After a long absence,
I long to visit that place
Where beneath lie the dead,
Consumed by the earth.
Once again, like a ghost,
Just got up from its slumber,
I descend in a possessed trance
To the place where beneath lie the dead.
Some Scottish, some English, some Irish too
Long lost men, forgotten by the world
Lie their bodies in an alien land
Where they served and ruled.
One day same fate awaits us,
Will anyone remember us?
When down the ages all will be lost
Our names in the tombstones
Overgrown with green slimy grass,
Beneath our flesh reduced to bones,
Or in a crematorium
Will our bodies be charred to ashes.
Why do we forget what awaits us?
Sin upon sin,
Injustice on injustice,
Seven deadly sins
Do we commit,
With undaunted spirit
Spirit that will evaporate into nothingness.
When on death’s door
We would be lying
Who will soothe us,
And save us from dying?
Many graves were broken
And are broken still
By men, by children,
Whose end, though gradually,
Is drawing near.
Oh why is there this fear
Of dying and death,
When sure it is to come?
Be ready to embrace it
With vigour and valour
Let’s face the unknown, the mysterious
Let’s be done with it!
