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This rude forefather is not yet asleep.
Though Death be truth which no man may dispute,
And different paths same destinations keep,
I should so like to take the scenic route.
Down here below the Norman parapets,
I spy a varied village by death planed.
While fickle life some fortuned few abets,
Mortality sees nought is really gained.
And yet, if this is all there be – it might –
Should I not strive to reach some un-mean grade?
And, yes, though I must fade from mortal sight,
Man’s memory immortal can be made.
O how the haematoma sky awakes,
Remembers well its origins in fire.
She smells like Chatham’s ropeyards as she breaks,
But stirs no beds where nameless ones retire.
Eternal stone survives like Tithonus:
Not quite as we intend. Its youth grows stale.
These markers which should ever sit on us,
Might live and live – their memories will fail.
They age and age and then forget their name,
To Zeus’s laugh grow hunched, and lurch, and fall.
Then passers-by will lift them from their shame,
And lead them, leave them leaning on a wall.
And here they stay. They stand against the church,
Like some sad hoary queue for bingo night.
Grey mossy moles each vacant face besmirch,
And lichen liver-spots the lost fools blight.
Beneath the clammy earth, beneath the root
Of yew and bramble, underneath the lid –
Or what poor mulch remains of it – the soot,
Life’s flame’s refunded ash is mutely hid.
How many dreams are buried here, what sparks? !
They might have set the world ablaze had fate
Been kinder, blessed more foreheads with her marks.
They thought their time would come, they would be great.
And now? O their time did come, and they sleep.
Let me not sleep. I shall not sleep. I wake.
And different paths same destinations keep,
But different paths there are, which I would take.
The choice is not but mine to make alone.
I pray death’s raid be rich beyond the gulf,
But I’ll not have my name recalled by stone
If Man does not remember it himself.
Give my monument no name; names fade,
Are meaningless and fleeting and, worse yet,
They lose all their humanity when shade
Consumes the mourners and the folk forget.
Far rather they should know those sad remains
Were not mundane, they strove yet knew desire
And starved potential. Write that soil contains,
“Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire.”
Samuel Reed
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