The scent of new-mown grass
Catches me as I pass
By graves in spring.
I take delight
In this brief light
As birds sing
Over tombs and grass
The scent of new-mown grass
Catches me as I pass
By graves in spring.
I take delight
In this brief light
As birds sing
Over tombs and grass
Sometimes I dash
Along the churchyard path.
But those who sleep
Have no appointments to keep.
And I pass by
The graveyard plot
Until I do not.
Yet I must
My final appointment keep
With worms and dust.
And the earth
Will continue to turn
Without heed or need
Of me
The Autumn dark is coming down.
One day I will drown
And leave the night
And the light.
For I am bound by dark
And will not fight
The inevitable night.
Hearing you cry twice
I thought of rats and mice.
You live in my heart
Inspiring my art.
In Shakespeare’s Macbeth
Your cry portended death.
When I hear your cry
I know I too must die.
But perhaps you and I
Will find in rhyme a kind
Of immortality –
Though, in the graveyard plot
It matters not.
Today,
Waking early, I reached for Elizabeth.
But, finding Robert, I read of death
And how the May
Left him bereft.
I am drowning in envy of Browning
For he so well caught
How short
Is our May.
For all things must fade away.
Death leaves friends bereft.
Yet poetry remains
To soothe our pain.
In my dreams
It often seems
To me
That what I feel
And sometimes see
Is reality.
When death steals
Up on me
Will it simply seem
That I dream?
The reality
Is unknowable to me.
Today I am a guest on Ester Chilton’s blog. In my guest post I talk about what caused me to write my poetry collection, “Passing Through: Some Thoughts on Life and Death”. To read my article pleas follow this link to Esther Chilton’s blog https://estherchilton.co.uk/2025/06/13/guest-writer-spot-172/?jetpack_skip_subscription_popup. Please do leave any comments you may have on Esther’s blog.
I passed by men mowing the churchyard grass.
When I came that way again
The men had passed, to go and mow
Some other grass perhaps.
I have walked the churchyard path
So oft , and passing by graves have coughed
Due to the hay.
One day the mower will pass,
And I will lie under the churchyard grass.
I have dreamed
The strangest dreams
And believed them to be true.
When I die
Will I finally find the reality
Of all I see?
No, I will see
No more of dream
Or of what we call reality
For I will no longer be me.
I find dust
In old books.
While in the summer churchyard
The birds twitter.
They have no bitter
Thoughts of dust.
The graves impassively stand.
I can not command
Death to stay his hand.
Yet some say we may
Achieve immortality.
Where we to achieve immortality
Should I put away Gray’s
“Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”?
The graveyard plot answers not
For the dead Are at peace.