Graven Images
This walk of the cemet’ry was opened just a decade back,
With headstones still as sharp as on the day they left the chisel,
Looking like they need to soften with a century of drizzle –
Alabaster white and granite red and marble black,
With hearts, and stars, and open books, and roses marking losses –
Many doves and cherubs, fewer angels, hardly any crosses.
A dozen diff’rent fonts are used, a hundred quoted lines –
And honestly, the sculptor’s task is difficult enough –
To craft them sombre, yes, yet touching, dignified, yet full of love.
So even here, there’s fashion – we’re so human in our shrines,
To leave behind a memory and not forgotten bones.
It’s strange to think that this may be a golden age of grieving stones.
Rhyming Couplets 