I spent time with Alyson Rhodes, as part of a workshop looking at inspiration for writing that can be derived from a cemetery (Bingley Cemetery on this occasion). The second of the two workshops was cancelled due to Coronavirus. However, I have so far produced two poems from the day. I will add this to my collection of poems about graveyards.
This poem is one of them:
GRAVEYARD
Was it the moss that lichened him to the stone?
Did he spend a life of meaning whilst alive?
Beneath the earth remains of calcified bone
Whilst above the ground granite memorials loom,
Near lies MARINA, who died by the ocean
Here the ‘sea’ is wave upon wave of headstones
that stretch eastwards; an army moving in slow motion
marching on the spot, watching over loved ones.
There are the well tended and neglected plots
Homing a no longer old husband or wife
Graves of the haves and also of the have nots
long livers and some who died young in a strife
Some sought religion before they passed over
Others found a different faith late in life
But the one thing each gravestone had in common
words mourning their passing, that cut like a knife
Peter Kay