After the Funeral

Afterwards, you walk alone in the quarry.
There are trees growing here now,
and later in the season, flowers will sprout,
bright counterpoints to the dark grey slate.
Left to its own devices, nature always wins.

Your thoughts cross the landscape,
at all that was nearly lost,
and mourn, not for the dead,
but for those still living,
those who have risen from the rubble

of lives broken,
and torn from their roots
and scattered like stone, stunted
by life’s abuse and carried by winds or fear or hope,
they have grown into beautiful things

like the trees in this quarry.
Defiant. Strong. Survivors
that bring beauty to all who see them,
and yet…
should not have had to struggle so hard to find the sun.

Still, this funeral is not a celebration of the dead.
That is what I know.
it is a celebration of the survivors,
growing tall and green and bright with flower.
Left to its own devices, nature always wins.

About this poem.

This one is too private to talk about in detail. The people involved will get it. The rest of you? Well perhaps it will touch something in you too.

After all, we’re not as different from each other as we like to think we are.

James. Drewry. I toast your nature.

Tom