Dying Matters Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Every funeral's different. Angus Calder
Poet and historian's was eco-green
With woodland pipe, songs, poems to mark his passing

In the Highlands, a blizzard marked the burying
Of a cousin, the minister's words howled down
By wind and storm.

At Echt, one funeral almost caused another
The wrong lair opened, gravediggers recalled
The mourners frozen, one struck by pneumonia

I've seen a coffin float in heavy rain
I've seen a gravedigger too drunk to dig
And kinsmen left to lift the heavy shovels

I've found a pint glass left beside a headstone
With heather from the nearby moor inside it
Much more affecting than a huge array of flowers

On Oscar Wilde's tomb…lipstick covered kisses
Sylvia Plath's last resting place is riddled
With pens and hairgrips, plastic flowers- a shrine

Richard III lay under a concrete topping
His bones beneath the icing of a walkway
John Knox remains in Edinburgh
In the city parking space No.23.parking space No.23

Andy Warhol's grave's collects soup tins
Elvis, in Graceland's smothered with teddy bears

Dying matters- death cafes are busy
Good grief! Death doulas, midwives at the end

At Auschwitz stones are laid instead of flowers
A cairn as high's The Shard would not suffice