Graveyards
By onemorething
- 6137 reads
We used to race by them,
holding our breath
to pay childish respect to the residents within,
laughed out our aliveness in hungry gasps
once past the graveyard.
Older, I used to jog through one in Ealing
with the dog walkers and the foxes and squirrels;
we darted the portrait galleries
of these fragments of lives
chipped into stone. Parakeets that dressed
the greys and browns
with their exotic blooms of colour
named the ghosts in squawks from high branches.
We haunted their dusks in the hush
behind its iron gates under the Beeches
and Oaks that darkened the sky.
All these markers keep the secrets
of unrevealed joys and sadnesses,
quiet too of the violences and passions,
they do not run or make a hurried dash
anywhere anymore,
worms wriggle in the ash.
Mourners attend their memories,
this fixed address eases the hollow of departures,
but there are funerals I haven't been to;
much more afraid of the living -
the dead have never frightened me.
And there are other silences of the heart
and grasps of ivies that entangle in concealments
to break free from, internal deaths and memorials;
those we have lost remind us to re-emerge from them,
blanch-faced from our own entombments.
Image from pixabay.
- Log in to post comments
Comments
I lke graveyards
This reminds me of what makes them good places to visit .... at least for some of us.
- Log in to post comments
Many superstitions and fears
Many superstitions and fears are associated with graveyards. References to black magic and zombies were rife in popular literature and burial grounds acquired a mysterious aura.
I remember when youngsters dared each other to cross a cemetery at night and not be frightened by the ghosts that were supposed to rise from their coffins.
But the tradition of honouring and respecting the dead existed and still do in many cultures.
I was intrigued by the mention of parakeets in your poem and wonder if they are the ones that have made Brooklyn's Green Wood cemetery their home.
Another well crafted piece from your imaginative pen.
Luigi x
- Log in to post comments
Great poem for All Souls
Great poem for All Souls
Particularly liked this :
"laughed out our aliveness in hungry gasps"
and
"We haunted their dusks in the hush
behind its iron gates under the beeaches"
- Log in to post comments
Much more afraid of the
Much more afraid of the living -
the dead have never frightened me.
And there are other silences of the heart
and grasps of ivies that in concealments
to break free from internal deaths and memorials,
those we have lost remind us to re-emerge from them,
blanch-faced from our own entombments.
I was struck how accurate those lines are and how I can relate to them with the many loved ones that have passed. My partners two granddaughters lost their mother last week. It was such a shock to get the news because I'd only been chatting to her a couple of weeks before. She was a lovely lady and it left a great saddness.
It's strange how our thoughts change as we get older, like you say when you're kids you dare each other to enter a grave yard at night and laugh at your antics, but as you age you learn that they are not only safe places, but also sacred and where someone's loved ones lie.
Thank you for sharing this poem onemorething. Your words hold wisdom.
Jenny.
- Log in to post comments
This caught some of the
This caught some of the feelings I've had but never thought to put into words.
Really liked this: we darted the portrait galleries / of these fragments of lives / chipped into stone.
Superb.
- Log in to post comments
I was interested to read your
I was interested to read your last couple of lines that seem to indicate how easily one can hide away inside oneself to loss for others and oneself.
When researching family history often there is a just a skeleton list of names and places and dates, but occasionally more about the people themselves. And it can seem the same in graveyards, occasionally an inscription or testimony to faith that gives out more. My sister did research on Welsh gravestones where those from the times of revival had really interesting little poems painstakingly inscribed – she was actually at the time studying the difference in rhyme etc from one dialect area to another of the same basic poem! Rhiannon
- Log in to post comments
Conjured lots of images,
Conjured lots of images, onemorething.
Lovely visual writing - light and easy to trip through (skills).
Called to mind a graveyard I stopped by once outside Uttoxeter. Climbing, bushing entanglement of ivy. I remember the parakeets along the King's Road, I think. Parson's Green, maybe. Someone did a lovely song of that name.
Very enjoyable read.
Nothing to fear from the dead, other than an early reunion.
Parson Thru
- Log in to post comments