BURYING friends is not a pomp, <br />Not, indeed, Roman: <br />Lacking the monument, <br />Heroic stone; <br />Nor is it an obscuring parasol, <br />The pad of customary gloves and cries <br />And a black leather mourning-carriage <br />Hung between death and the beholder's eyes. <br />This little bin of cancelled flesh <br />Strode the earth once, <br />Rubbed against men— <br />But that's all done. <br />A gentle elegy, a tear or two, <br />May charm the grave-diggers, no doubt, <br />But nothing can count to these incongrous ruins. <br />Their commercial value is not worth speaking about. <br />Only it seems not a burial <br />Of irrelevant sods, <br />But a lopped member <br />From this my body; <br />Almost, in fact, a tiny amputation, <br />A paring of biography, thrown in there. <br />And he has thieved his own life away <br />And something from mine. Farewell, thou pilferer!<br /><br />Kenneth Slessor<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/burying-friends/
