Last year I often used to walk past (or through) a graveyard on my way to school in Japan – a great way to focus the mind on death & renewal!


elements

Mega graveyard, near Himeji, Japan.
13/1/2012

we try so hard to keep memory alive.
flesh eaten by other life, the air.
bones last a moment longer.
marble monuments endure for centuries

yet even these fade,
crumble back to arms
of earth and air.
ultimately nothing remains

but that long chain of chromosomes,
past and future generations linked by spiral bands.
with time the patient ground
welcomes us all.

Text © rob walker 2012. First published in Poetry Magazine (US) 2013.