Each Time I Pass A Cemetery Poem by Francis Duggan

Each time I pass a cemetery the thoughts come back to me
That such places do remind us of our own mortality
'Tis said that they do rest in peace though in death they had no choice
The dead for themselves cannot speak death robbed them of a voice.

I too do fear the fear of death why otherwise pretend
And each time I pass a cemetery I think of my own end
I envy those who believe in an afterlife of happiness
Their gift of faith at for them what will be with joy they do express.

Each time that I do pass the place where the dead people lay
I think that there too will be for me a final night and day
And with every minute that we live our end to us is near
And only the thought of the fear of death that we do ever fear.

Inscribed gravestones of concrete and marble are everywhere around
To mark the graves where the dead lay in consecrated ground
They once breathed the air the living breathe and walked in the sunshine
And the very thought does bother me that their lot will be mine.