Tombs
Grey tombs
of weathered rock
punctuated by
Orange patches of lichen.
Upon a hill
In the drizzling rain.
Low clouds obscure the sun
Enshroud the oblivion of forever.
Of relics abandoned
In the wake of life;
A life spent in the sun’s light.
Confused lives
Striving towards
An unfathomable salvation.
Frozen in scripture,
In inscriptions,
In photographs and stories
Eliciting empathetic understanding
To illuminate a journey
That ended.
Opher – 28.10.2022
I wrote this on a grey, dismal day while walking through the graveyard in Howarth at the Bronte’s parsonage.
I was reading the inscriptions and thinking about the lives of these people. It felt as if they sacrificed so much for some idea of salvation, of an afterlife.
It felt to me as if real life, this brief flame, was almost relegated to a secondary role. Their hope was for something that lay beyond death.
Yet, life is all we have; this moment. Best to life it to the full. The flame flickers.