My Funeral Poem by Denis Martindale

I was permitted to see my funeral,
A vision and nothing more,
A few people attending,
A service soon completed...

Then the people left and the birds returned,
The hours passed, the light dimmed,
Night came once again...
Then the darkness...

And the cold night weighed heavy,
Seeming never to end,
Yet morning came and so it went on...
The sun shone, the cold departed...

By the end of the week,
I was a forgotten man,
Just another name removed from time,
Just a legacy of all I ever was...

Prophecy is not yet done with me,
Though a thousand years glide by,
For the spirit is eternal,
With much more to be revealed...

So the vision merely hastened,
All that I ever was, or would yet know,
For a man's known numbered days
Direct his final ways...

So from this day forth,
Remember what I was,
For I am that man no more,
The rules have changed...

A new man is born this day...
The man I was is dead...
It will be the new man only
Who attends the funeral...