Milk Bottles and Artificial Flowers

We’re sorry what we’ve done to your dead.

We didn’t mean to let this happen,
And we’ll do something, we promise,
To fix;

The long, browning weeds, whose arms snake around sinking tombstones,
Though their limbs, too, hang weep and limp and without strength,
Like the rotting flesh and bones.

The bluebells, turned brownbells,

The traffic, breaking the hum of silence.

The headstones, eroded and grey.

But,
They’ll come, with knuts and bolts and hammers and nails,
Litter picks and plastic bin-bags,
And the preacher’s son will mow the grass,
Cut down the loose ends and the bedraggle,
And let it rise again, green and bright and full of life,

But for now we’re sorry
What we’ve done to your dead,
And we want you to remember that we apologized, and please tell them that we loved thy neighbour.