at last
 

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The nothing that you were before returns
when you are dead. I'll have no use for urns
or graveyard shrines, for ashes stored or strewn.
I won’t be there to read the chiselled runes
that green against a slab of canting stone.
Nor shall I rest in peace, nor sleep, alone
or with my lover's bones. I will not be.
No me. No loneliness. No company.

And yet, when tasked to specify my will,
to fill the aeons that aren’t mine to fill,
an image forms: my father, laid in deep
beneath a green field site, the wandering sheep
grazing above, the country dark, the rain.
Some wraith of wordless ache I can’t explain
would plant me there to keep him company.
Not that he is, of course. Nor would I be.

And then my sister, whom I hardly knew,
her simple churchyard grave. My brother, too,
his ashes, atoms now, lodge there, interred,
within her cot-sized plot. And it’s absurd,
but I would be with them. No loneliness.
No comfort, peace or sleep. No gods to bless
an afterlife that won't come next. No me.
Yet I would rest there in their company.

Cremate my body, then, I write at last.
I sense the void: it’s dark and cold and vast.
Burn away my flesh, grind down the bone.
I would not spend eternity alone.
I know I’ll never know the great abyss,
but share me out among the ones I miss.
For there or not, I’d rest more peacefully
if I had those I love for company.

.

S1L4 "greying"->"canting"
S1L5 was hexameter: "Nor shall I rest, not sleep for centuries, alone"
S3L1 "who"->whom

Hi Matt,
I enjoyed the N's change of mind, and the understated 'cot-sized plot'.
Couple or three niggles.

S1/L2 - should it be 'I have' not 'I'll have'?

S2/L4 - 'site' gave me pause. Felt out of place (and filler.)

S4/L7-8 - 'I'll rest' instead of 'I'd rest'? And 'have' for 'had'?

RG.

Hi, Matt—

I like this piece very much. It is an excellent example of how those beliefs that we think are the established bedrock of our characters really only become clear and focused when they are used in making a real decision. It’s one thing to declare oneself an agnostic or atheist and quite another to make one’s final arrangements. We think that our beliefs are completely rational and often forget to take our emotions into account.

Glenn

Hi Matt

As Glenn said this is very well done. It reads and rhymes beautifully but it also feels natural and unforced. And that's hard to pull off.

I think some of Richard's nits are explained because you have a conditional subjunctive mood going on. I'm thinking that "site" in S2L4 is a reference to a new graveyard, one of those ecological types where they don't have headstones but do have wildlife.

A couple of nits. "Tasked" S2L1 is one of those new verbs that the English language has adopted without checking with me first. Could you not say "asked"?

And S3L1 "who" should be "whom"?

Matt, I like this. I enjoy the way certain words (be, me, no, not, nor, bone, alone, company) keep circling and returning as you zero in on what you want and why. I notice that just one line has six beats (S1L6) and I assume that was not intentional.

Susan

The opening assertion has resonance Matt. I presume 'you' rather than 'I' is for reader inclusivity. Perhaps it is a response to a counter argument.

I like the weight and anonymity of 'slab', and gravestones do become anonymous overtime, though 'greying stone' to reflect an age process didn't get beyond the image of the stone being grey anyway. The listing of urns, shrines etc makes a valid argument from the 'I' viewpoint.

I see the 'wraith' word is making another appearance' : 'Some wraith of wordless ache I can't explain'. Somewhat literary and elevated, perhaps ironically so, but I like the sound anyway. Besides mention of 'runes' and 'gods' allows for that tradition (in poetry). Also the cot-sized plot, atoms, will making anchors the poem to practical, contemporary, and personal. Relatable elements outside the literary world.

I found the poem not too glum, I clung to some humour in the absurdities, though the loneliness, with that demise 'spread' for company, was palpable.

Phil

Matt,

Praise.

Nemo

Matt, this is great. I have but one small observation (hardly a nit), and it is that the phrase "cot-sized plot" feels slightly awkward compared to the smoothness of the rest of the language.

.
I read the first stanza and stopped. It was enough. I'll go back to continue, but I just could not go on for fear of losing what I had read. Yes, praise.

.

Bravo! Nothing much more to say, except it reminded me of Larkin's "The Old Fools," especially these lines from the Larkin poem:

At death, you break up: the bits that were you
Start speeding away from each other for ever
With no one to see. It's only oblivion, true:
We had it before, but then it was going to end,
And was all the time merging with a unique endeavour
To bring to bloom the million-petaled flower
Of being here. Next time you can't pretend
There'll be anything else.