The Lonesome Graveyard
You will notice that it’s far from anywhere
A graveyard lost in the wilderness,
The place has a neglected, run-down air,
As if time has washed his hand of the whole business.
The dirt track skirts the perimeter, still unwalled,
Going down to Apsara Vihar, as it is now called.
People seldom come here now, living or dead
The congregation is reduced to a few old souls.
The young have all left to earn their daily bread.
Leaving the old folks in their rabbit holes.
These are hard times for the followers of Christ.
The Raj is gone there is only the parish priest.
To look after their spiritual and material needs
There are no jobs, most people work for the church,
Doing odd jobs that come by, old age breeds
Despair and sorrow amongst those left in the lurch.
Most of them dream of final release.
And eternal rest under the cypress trees.
Yet the old place is not quite forgotten.
Someone has put a padlick on the rickety gate.
Never mind if the staves are nearly half-rotten.
They are trying to spruce up the place of late.
The graveled paths are cemented and horrible sight,
The gothic gateway has been painted white!
Thankfully the old graves are still the same.
You can’t do much with the chipped gravestones.
Where the weather has effaced many a name.
Let the cypress needles fall softly on the old bones,
Softer than epitaphs that vainly extol
Resurrection and the immortality of the soul.
Here lies Colonel Burton of the Musketry School
And corporal Beames who died in his twenties.
Children by the score; blown away like cotton wool
Little lives snuffed away before their time
By the unfamiliar tropical clime.
Yet I am glad this place will not run to seed
Like so many other relics that are gone at last,
But will continue serving the community’s need
Thanks to the parish priest and his love of the past,
This lonesome graveyard with its aura of mystery
Will remain; a living page of our recent history.
