When Death Ends Life
by Brian Abbott. Still alive in Cork, Ireland
When death ends life for me don’t pray.
And let no minister or priest
Incant his prayers above my corpse.
Grant my request in this at least,
And let me die-as I’d insist-
An unrepentant atheist.
And do not give my body up,
To those who charge a thousand pound,
To place a corpse inside a box,
Then put it six feet in the ground.
Don’t clothe me in my Sunday Best,
And leave me in a “Home of Rest.”
And keep me from the cemetery.
I do not want a vacant plot
Among the, “Dear Departed Ones,”
(The most of whom are soon forgot…)
No mawkish gravestone words for me,
Like, “Rest In Peace Eternally.”
Just take my body-draped in red,
And put it on a funeral pyre.
Then say some words about my life
Before the wood is set afire.
When my cremation is complete,
Then this of you I would entreat:
Please spread my ashes in a place
Where roses grow. For in each rose
My elements will be subsumed.
I’ll live again! As what? Who knows.
At least in every rose there’ll be,
At microscopic part of me.
But wait. For now my sprit fails.
My vanity demands some more.
To be subsumed is not enough.
So this last thing I would implore:
Please carve my name upon a stone,
And set it where my ash in sown…
