A vile serrated day that suffered
The wind and the air to be stifled,
Spread sick among the ashes of burning,
And held silence upon the screams of yearning,
Yelped frigid chorus of agonistic moans,
In pain and torment, of rotting bones.
-
I walked along a path paved of marble brick,
My temperment unnerving, my gait was thick,
The path aforementioned halted upon a gate,
There opened, I saw, where the dead gestate,
Leading down a snake-bodied trail,
Tried as I did to turn back, I failed,
I saw no reason to leave the place,
The corpse garden, it seemed, held great solace.
-
Trudging down in acute contempt,
I struggled to see all but lament,
Comforted, dare I might say,
With being surrounded by extent of decay,
I flowed forth as if some purpose,
Guided me to them, the reason unsurfaced,
At where I found them sitting aside,
The trail of things in past belied,
Quiet, and leading to the body swamp,
With scars detailing drunk mourners’ clomps,
Chipped and chiseled, repaired and mended,
The Stairs awaited me and repented.
-
The first step sat on the top of the hill,
Where the path veered, silent and still,
A narrow case were these stairs so shrill,
A horror oozed from them and fear me filled.
I could not but wonder why irony had found,
That in the graveyard, it started profound,
Aside this step a great living tree at each flank,
And aside the bottom a matching pair, but dead and rank,
Like a gateway from living world to dead,
This whispered somber secrets to my ears full of dread,
I took the first step and it’s concrete creaked,
Rather odd, I thought, a sound for stone to secrete,
Or was it a muffled wince of pain,
From another mortal stepping again?
-
The weeping willows here feigned not their name,
For I heard them cry again and again,
The tragedy in bark and each branch,
Etched inside were names and romance,
Initials of lovers on the first two trees,
Rotting off the second set like some disease,
The twins were mirrored like that in a story,
But this was reality, this was horrifying,
I knew their fate even without a headstone,
They loved and died, and only the trees had known.
-
The perils of this place seemed haunting,
The grass so green and at peace, seemed daunting,
I took each step with trepidation,
The caution here lingered with anticipation,
At the last step I was greeted with a chill,
The faint breeze had just marked another ****,
As I stepped forth once more on to the earth,
It seemed as though the staircase lurched,
I knew then I could not leave,
Until I’d seen all of what was bereaved,
The only thought I could think was one,
Were I to die here, I wouldn’t be alone.