When we lay you, gently,
in the most glorious mahogany box.
And you are borne high on shoulders of six pallbearers.
When we march, lazily, like a pack
of starving school children,
dressed in black robes and red eyes
and pale faces.
When we surround your earthen pit in one accord,
chanting boring hymns with eyes as flood –
When we keep you at the mild mercy of new neighbours – rude maggots.
And tuck you neatly, gradually,
in heavy blankets of sand.
When we give our tribute in teary visions and saggy tongues
When, one by one, we leave
our roses on your eternal bedroom
and leave reluctantly, one by one.
When we visit you in three days,
and rinse your grave again – with
unrelenting tears. Will that be all?
Tell me.
I beseech thee, tell me. Will that be all?
Shall we mourn you for two weeks and
forget you for two millenniums – forever?
Or don’t you know?
That it is not of massive funerals,
nor is it of costly coffins. Nor of elegant cemeteries.
Nor of giant gravestones.
That it is not of loud, noisy obituaries;
and it will never be of a thousand
gathered vanities.
But,
of the golden memories
painted by your noble finger
on the canvas of many hearts.
It is not of the man that slept,
But of the silvery legacies he hung high
like chandeliers, like calendars
on the walls –
of our hearts.
So when we lay you, gently,
in the most glorious mahogany box.
Will you rest six feet below this ground
And at the same time,
A thousand feet above this ground, Up, high
on the pinnacles of our cosy hearts.
Will you?
Photo by Marek Studzinski on Unsplash
About the author:
A melting pot of profound African literature and Lifestyle.
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Well done bro