Drinking In The Chinese Cemetery Poem by Gordon R Menzies

Crow couple stalks through sea-blown grass
where tiny white flowers are scattered like salt
a lone slender gull with the wind in his eyes
watches their progress and ours, perched
on one pillar of the funeral platform, where
dry flowers hang their heads in remembrance
sad offerings to the ancestors buried here
far from their homes across the water
we pass with quiet solemnity with our wine
settle in on the black and broken sea rocks
where weeds sway hypnotically below
and the Pacific is evening kind and quiet
every rolling wave bringing Asian whispers
and the imagined scent of soft Jasmine
across the swell, where sinking sun descends
leaving the days drippings in our cups
the wine is good and deep dying red
we drink it from plastic cups and grin
I think of quiet company and rice wine
foreign words playing on exotic tongues
feel the sadness of exiles, and smile
knowing we are as lost as they
Hibernia, Caledonia and Cathay
I feel the longings of their bones
singing kindred songs of exile, we sit
at the sea-torn, ragged edge of Victoria
watching snails chewing at the stones
like hundreds of Chinese souls, wandering