Not Long Enough Be Death Poem by Clive Culverhouse

under the lych-gate shall I pass
before the wait in holding hands
for the robed man of God to steer
me to my resting days

and shall I then be added to
the sanded brick of grotesque face
that stares across the standing stones
to look beyond the yew

and those who sidle in the rain
with shoulders loaded down with strife
will keep their head and eye to ground
and unaware of mine

then as I learn such higher ways
and freedom casts me from its stone
so will I then bargain forth
and leave the world behind

now in the realm I find myself
among ancestral light and warmth
the pain and heaviness has gone
and I begin to shine

then glow do I a little more
in understanding what has been
while bathed in voice of honey tone
and stole for my return