Did you, in your dreams, ever die
then wake unmarked, without a grave?
No epitaph to intimate
how here it was you came to lie;
no comfort left for those who crave
an elegy to know you by.
Think of the anguish you might save
through setting down some stone display.
Take a look inside the lychgate:
tombs arrayed on the moss-grown way.
Diverse in form and what they say,
measure them with an inner eye.
Single tablets are commonplace
and prone to lean without a base,
while wealth proclaims its parting day
with pillar, crypt and vault engraved.
But none quite master of their fate:
the words we choose time will unlace.
iii. 2020
This fell into its metre pretty much from the off. Maintaining that wasn't half as difficult as coming up with all the rhymes, which was the technical challenge I set myself. Finding a rhyme that works can sometimes lead you to express something surprising, different from your original intention; at other times, it can be a burden worth throwing off. A lot depends on the mood you're after.
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