The wind picks up from the Mersey and races dog legged

and fancy free past sun bleached stones

and weathered time bitten

faces of the angels staring, unblinking and without humour

against the elements, and yet they feel remorse

for the quiet and solitude offered

amongst the grave stones.

 

The graveyard is unnatural in the lowering

of the September Sun, and the marking of a season,

unnerving as the youthful, over colour filled flowers

placed in the glass bubble shell wave with less vigour

than that of the aged trees, but to whom

one by one will pass in faded glory long before the tree

succumbs to being felled, and the sun beats down

on the mole sniffing out night

and the worms upturned and uprooted take on the might of Earth.

 

Sunshine in the Bootle graveyard is eerie,

it reflects menace where the darkness, unrelenting

windswept rain batters the name without a coat

to protect it and the dying moon swimming

in the night sky smiles down on the forgotten

and the blissful, tucked up asleep, resting

forever in dawn repose.

 

The squeal of a Magpie close by

alerts the worm to harvest

and the September Sun, heavy

back aching with pregnant pause

quietly passes judgement

on those laying flowers on a bright autumnal day.

 

Ian D. Hall 2015.