Her final journey

 Her final journey


Her final journey all alone

From the hospital to the mortuary 

No one there to hold her hand

That grew pale and cold at dawn


She felt the company of her parents

Around her casket in the funeral home

A short lived home for next day

A special mass with lovely singers. 


They lowered her casket gently

Into her final resting place

She could make out the prayers

The old priest recited by the grave. 


And then the loneliness that comes

The first night in the cemetery 

Where older souls have with time

Accepted their fate for eternity. 


But younger souls are restless

Acceptance comes much harder

When aged barely twenty

Her whole life was taken from her. 


Little comfort to be told 

That someday her friends would share

This shady patch in the corner

Beneath the elms now grown taller. 


Her parents came and changed the flowers

Every week for thirty years

Until they came at last to join her

One winter morning when snow lay deeper. 


Now no one comes to check the grave 

It’s overgrown like all the rest

The living have their jobs to keep

Their little worries of the week. 


After many years she too accepted

That fifty years among ten million

Matters little as we become

The basic source of stars again. 

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