Dying Matters

Every funeral's different. Angus Calder Poet and historian's was eco-green With woodland pipe, songs, poems to mark his passing In the Highlands, a blizzard marked the burying Of a cousin, the minister's words howled down By wind and storm. At Echt, one funeral almost caused another The wrong lair opened, gravediggers recalled The mourners frozen, one struck by pneumonia I've seen a coffin float in heavy rain I've seen a gravedigger too drunk to dig And kinsmen left to lift the heavy shovels I've found a pint glass left beside a headstone With heather from the nearby moor inside it Much more affecting than a huge array of flowers On Oscar Wilde's tomb…lipstick covered kisses Sylvia Plath's last resting place is riddled With pens and hairgrips, plastic flowers- a shrine Richard III lay under a concrete topping His bones beneath the icing of a walkway John Knox remains in Edinburgh In the city parking space No.23.parking space No.23 Andy Warhol's grave's collects soup tins Elvis, in Graceland's smothered with teddy bears Dying matters- death cafes are busy Good grief! Death doulas, midwives at the end At Auschwitz stones are laid instead of flowers A cairn as high's The Shard would not suffice