Others, I hope, will recognise the feelings that are expressed.
For me, the thought of anyone weeping because of someone’s absence through death is difficult to bear. Our memories should either be moments of joy or should be forgotten.
The dead can do no harm nor feel any pain.
All Now Dead Lie Low
As children by the churchyard play
It matters not what words they say
Nor the length of time they stay
The dead will not awake
If, in the church, bell ringers ring
And choirs, hymns and anthems sing
They cannot life to the fallen bring
Nor from them solace take
They lie among grey stones and grass
Beneath stained panes of glinting glass
And, however many people pass
The dead will hear no noise
They’re buried deep beneath the earth
Their seeds were sown before their birth
Their lives began midst shouts of mirth
They were once girls and boys
They made of life the best they could
Though now enclosed in coffin wood
Their bodies rest where trees once stood
They can, now, nothing cherish
For them the voice of the reaper screamed
No-one knows what they have dreamed
Reality no longer what it seemed
The mind with body will perish
Some may make peace before that time
By spoken word or written rhyme
Or even by the art of mime
We choose our means of expression
But they cannot, now, on bad deeds dwell
No evil thought, no fearful smell
Nor can they wish the living well
Nor banish their depression
Some dead lie low in shallow graves
Sailors sunk beneath the waves
Bodies burned, or left in caves
A process fast or slow
You who wish them to live again
Must from your saddest thoughts refrain
Joyful memories should remain
Shared thoughts do not lie low
Think of the belovèd – long lost, just gone
Who feeds the soil we tread upon
Whose skin will never feel the sun
Whose cheeks will never glow
They live on only in the minds of others
Be they friends or enemies, sisters, brothers
All were equally loved by mothers
But they all, now dead, lie low
The priest may shout beneath his steeple
That men and women will all die equal
But, to death, there is no rational sequel
That non-believers know
One can imagine another place
Where good and bad may show their face
Where there’s no distinction of religion or race
But down here, all now dead lie low