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Mourning

by Ambitions of Lisa 

Posted: 27 January 2008
Word Count: 47
Summary: Apologies for the morbid approach.
Related Works: As Time Goes By • 
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Your stone represents your life.
The petals on the flowers
fall like the tears of the bereaved,
onto the earth which entombs
your fragile boxed remains.

The whistling wind blows,
breaking the sad silence
within this garden of bones.
Peaceful, yet lonely you lay,
untouchable, forever more.






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MarlaD at 20:08 on 27 January 2008  Report this post
Beautiful..though it confirms my desire to be cremated at the same time x
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sarah3891 at 11:25 on 28 January 2008  Report this post
Wholly agree with Marla - Beautiful.

I've recently lost someone close and it brought a lump to my throat actually.

The petals on the flowers
fall like the tears of the bereaved


Just beautiful :-)
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Ambitions of Lisa at 14:42 on 28 January 2008  Report this post
Thank you MarlaD and Sarah....
I also want to be cremated.
The writing is helping to come to terms with the loss.
Lisa
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James Graham at 19:15 on 29 January 2008  Report this post
Hi Lisa - I know your previous poem 'As Time Goes By' and this one were both written as a way of coming to terms with loss. But just looking at them as poems, I much prefer 'As Time Goes By' in which you use simple language to express a thought that any reader would have to recognise as genuine and true. In 'Mourning' I think you perhaps try too hard for effect, so that it's a touch sentimental here and there. Falling flower-petals are really a very conventional figure of speech in connection with mourning. There's also the rather overworked image (more often painted or photographed than used by poets) of a flower with a single drop of water on it, representing a tear. There's such a stock of conventional ways of expressing mourning that when writing an elegaic poem it's easy to find ourselves using one of them almost without realising it.

I do like 'your fragile boxed remains' and the image of the wind 'breaking the sad silence/ within this garden of bones'. But the flower petals, and maybe also the second last line, come across as rather sentimental. Of course the impulse to write these two poems was equally genuine and true in both cases - but for me the second poem strikes a slightly wrong note, whereas 'As Time Goes By' rings as clear as a bell.

James.
Read the WriteWords interview with James Graham
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Ticonderoga at 12:53 on 25 February 2008  Report this post
Beautiful piece, indeed. I like the way you spin the cliches to give them a new edge. Write on.

Best,

Mike
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