Waking from dream

I just woke as if from a dream
Then realized that all was not
Exactly what I thought it seemed

I shook my head and looked around
I was not  where I believed
But felt like six feet underground

I was but a mere skeleton
Comfy in my last resting place
In a cemetery in Brighton

Strangely looked from my empty shell
To see a passing worm stare at me
"Okay" He says "You're not in Hell"

"Good" I thought "Must get above ground"
"Woah!" Friendly worm then did say
"It's my job to keep you safe and sound"

I shook my skull and argued on
"What of my wife and family?"
"Surely they'll wonder where I've gone?"

Just how he laughed that little worm
"She's beside you; came down last week"
"New ones do tend to twist and turn"

So I laid back down as he said
As all worms friends got back to work
And wife and I snuggled in bed

Image found at https://pixabay.com/photos/graves-cemetery-grabschmuck-3683272/

As birds flew away

This poem written about a year ago was posted last January and has now getting another airing,

Demented woman
Still crying by the graveside
Her spouse stays silent

Birds pay her no mind
Swooping and pecking around
While she weeps alone

Widow unaware
The gravedigger's daughter watched
From father's tool shed

Her raven hair shone
She waiting for her boyfriend
In the setting sun

Whistling as he walked
Young man's hand held a present
As birds flew away

Image found at www.istockphoto.com

At the foot of the Apennine hills

This piece was originally posted way back in 2009 without a prompt and has now found a home in Two Shoes Tuesday for the prompt Sacrifice.

The coach sped along the autostrada. Forty six contented tourists basked in the morning sun. Their tour of Italy was nearly at its end. The drive today would see them back in Rome in the afternoon with just a farewell dinner, a good night's rest and they would go their separate ways again.

What a great tour it had been. Ten days of sights sounds, food and friendship. Each one had a favourite city.

"I loved Venice."

"Oh. No Stresa and the Alps for me."

"Pisa was so spectacular."

"But what about Rome and it's history?"

"The romantic scenery of Capri, you can't beat that."

"Surely the remains at Pompeii?"

And so it went on, everyone's senses had been filled; not one disappointed. The attempts at the language, the fabulous food and wine, the irrepressible humour of the guide, what memories they would take back with them.

The coach slowed down and turned off the main road. The guide explained that the group would now pass the monastery of Monte Cassino. He was less buoyant now. He spoke slower. It was as though he something difficult to say.

"It was destroyed in the war by allied bombs and ground attack...the monastery buildings were rebuilt after the war...many thousands of soldiers died on both sides, attacking and defending it.

He looked away for a moment, then went on.

"Perhaps it was not necessary to do this. Cassino...Cassino, it was not so important." He shrugged his shoulders and sat down again.

As the coach approached the towering structure on the apex of the hill, the sun disappeared from view and the sad edifice cast its shadow over the coach. A village was passed, a turning taken and the coach drew up at a lay-by at the foot of some steps.

The passengers emerged into the sunlight again and were invited to view the Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery, overlooked by the monastery so high above it. The coach party climbed the steps and were greeted by a crisp cut field of blinding white. There in front of them marked by countless rows of identical marble headstones were the many graves of the fallen allied soldiers who gave their lives in order to take the citadel from their enemy. Not far away we were told there were other cemeteries; American, German, Polish, all giving testament to those few weeks of the war.

But these were not some unkempt graveyards of neglect. This place was fresh and clean and alive with trees and flowers and sound of birdsong.

Tourists became mourners and without words being spoken, they separated and walked singly amongst the dead. It was as though the experience was too personal to share. Row upon row of young lives lost; sons of grieving mothers, husbands of stricken wives, fathers of orphaned children.

There they were, captain and corporal, private and padre, all equal in that part of Italy which was now their home.

Lance Corporal William Scott, Dorset Regiment, Aged 21
Private John Hughes, Middlesex Regiment, Aged 19
Captain Reginald Farrow, Royal Ulster Rifles, Aged 27
Pilot Officer James Riddle, Royal Air Force, Aged 25

On and on went the inscriptions, each one a wound to the heart. More than one tear was shed at this frequent inscription:

A soldier known only to God

Once strangers, they were made brothers and sisters as the names were read. Closer too were they to the guide whose own soil had been soaked by these warriors' blood.

In grieving perhaps all now could see the futility of war. If lives have to be lost in causes not of their own making, there could be no better place to rest in that beautiful and awe inspiring cemetery at the foot of the Apennine hills.

(Photo by the author, names invented for privacy)

Where Artists Sleep

Not far from the Boulevard de Clichy at the foot of Montmartre but a short walk from the Moulin Rouge there is a place invisible to most visitors to Paris. It is a small cemetery; a magical place. It is not seen by the majority of foreigners that flock to the city each year, yet it holds for me what is the essence of that great city. It is the resting place of some of that city’s greatest artists; that made Paris such a drawcard for the world.

The main entrance is hidden down a side street, the Avenue Rachel, although you can reach it by one of Paris steep staircases from the Rue Caulaincourt Bridge which spans the south east corner of the cemetery. Once you enter, you visit a wondrous world.

Immediately the street sounds are hushed and you are confronted by a tranquil oasis where those in that corner sleep. Most of the memorials are built on a grand scale by families who pack their relatives in these stone mausoleums that dot the walkways like sentry boxes.

The first name I recognised was Emile Zola, that novelist whose heroes and heroines were influenced by the fateful blood and passions of the Rougon Macquart family. A little further on is the tomb of Hector Berlioz whose Symphony Fantastique was inspired by his love for an Irish actress who he later married.

On the same path is the elaborate tomb of the painter Jean Baptist Greuze whose social commentary paintings in the 17^th century warned of a revolution that was to come.

But a few paces from there is the resting place of Jean Honoré Fragonard, a contemporary who painted the idyllic France that existed only for the elite. Who can forget his painting “The Swing” showing a young man on the ground admiring an amused girl on a swing as she reveals her petticoats as she swings above him?

While we were walking around the cemetery we had this feeling of being watched. We rested on our climb up the steep paths and slowly when these were cleared of visitors the true residents of the cemetery emerged. From behind the tombs, from out of openings came the owners of that patch of Paris. Quietly we observed the cats of Paris emerge from hiding to stalk and play and rest in the weak October sunshine. As we rose again to walk on they just as quickly disappeared not wishing to have contact with us.

At the cemetery’s high point close to boundary wall there is a massive family crypt; it bears the name “de Gas”. On it is affixed a medallion showing a man with a long nose wearing a floppy hat. Here lies Edgar Degas, impressionist painter and master draughtsman who is ever immortalised by his paintings & crayon sketches of ballet dancers. His hands were able to create the movement and expression of their every action, capturing on canvas all the excitement of the dance, the stage and the swirl of muslin.

Seeing the tombs of these heroes of France is a most moving experience and our rest stops were many. The names went on; Leo Delibes and the Flower duet from Lakme, Jacques Offenbach and his music of “Gaité Parisienne’ echoing the nightlife down the road and now here is Stendhal and his novels “The Charterhouse of Parma” and “Scarlet and Black”.

We were approaching the overpass bridge again and the sound of traffic could be heard once more. To our right was a box like tomb some steps from the path. It was that of the family “Du Plessis.” Interred here was Alphonsine du Plessis a beautiful but tragic heroine. She was Dumas’s Lady of the Camellias, and Marguerite in Verdi’s “La Traviata”. She was real!

As we left the cemetery I felt we had seen more than a collection of graves, we had been in touch with the artistic spirit of France.

On looking back down over the cemetery from the Rue Caulaincourt which wends its way around the back of Montmartre like a comforting arm, I saw the cats emerge again to reclaim their territory.

Illustration "The Swing" by Fragonard