In Memory of Sarah King by Tony Ashenden

Had you known your granite headstone                                        

would be flanked by two unknowns                                              

you might have thought it significant;                                          

as yours stands tall like one chosen                                               

compared to their drunken faces.

The tree that shadows where you lay                                                        

its sloughed bark being last to view                                              

the moonlights felicitations;                                                          

In your day sinewy green with youth                                                        

has suffered change like you have.

The proud and leafy head is burnt                                                 

broken and lifeless; its blackened

antler branches gouging the sky.                                                  

The knuckled roots naked of earth                                                

reshape the form you left behind.

The unknown blistered facing flags                                              

askew upon the biers they mark                                                    

wedged between the tree’s webbed feet                                        

is living proof that men must fear.                                                 

Names mean nothing to nature here.

Though Earth has held your name upright                                    

slow moving time has wrought its change;                                   

skeletal remains seeking rebirth                                                                

remarry to achieve what you could not.

Path to Mecca: world without end.

-TONY ASHENDEN

Tony is a seasoned traveller; a computer analyst, seaman, shaman, and a complementary alternative therapist. He is a writer of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. In his own words – Life is real only then when I am. Please visit his blog Mine Quick Voice of Aquarius to read more of his work.

We would love to read your work. Interested? Please READ our SUBMISSION GUIDELINES.

-MASTICADORESINDIA

Advertisement