Tearscape

This poem is about death, and how it tears family and friends apart. I think of a friend, mourning the loss of a father at this time, of the parents of the poor baby dying, of the toddler cut down by a van reserving, of those lost in the fire at the tower block, and those who drown far from home trying to find a safer world. And of my own beloved Annie.

There is much death in this world, and grief has many names.

Tearscape

Tear your clothes in grief, weep, weep
Sorrow has no secrets left to keep
But reveals all; it is like a heavy rain
It pounds the dry earth, brings pain
Beneath the damp earth lie the bones
Above, names engraved on gravestones
Marking that year, that month, that day
When that fourth horseman came to slay
Black armour, visor down, that Fell knight
That rides this way, snuffs out the light
The candle splutters and dies, burnt out
And the mourning bells now ring out
Dust on our heads, crying, broken heart
As our fellowship is cruelly ripped apart
The arrows fly, death seeking out a mark
Each grain of dust in sunlight very stark