Ode To A Churchyard Poem by Mosi Mustapha Gomina

Upon your grey face, O you parcelled moor
That harbour the sacred flowers of yore
Lay ample stone-structured lairs of the dead
Where dreams are put to rest and breath abed.

While fright-frozen sculptures exist abound
With torches of silence that beguile hounds,
The chalices of blood of men lay 'neath;
Dust, their chaplets and brazen worms, their sheath.

The shrills of neglect eddy your pale climes.
Though the cocoons be laced with blithe designs;
Under your feet, built beside bleak meadows,
Side by side, loathed fools and great heroes.

For your quaint mouth knows not arrows from bows;
Emeralds from glossy stones, friends from foes.
And e'en though flowers are pillowed atop,
Their fortresses of repose are your crop.

But while the chariots of death ramble by
And befogged grave owls hoot and mourn and sigh,
Tendrils of the Lotus' art is laid
To wreathe earthen crevasses on your glade.

O subtle haven from glens of despair,
Encumbered with rest, you're morbidly fair.
For side by side lay mortals in quietude
Upon your quell breast in swoon solitude.

Why you seem so sullen, I cannot say.
Swaddled still in lustre strands of dismay,
O churchyard that was e'en before my birth
Be gentle and blithe when I lay in death.

When my flesh-tailored clothing is no more
And bones rover in nakedness as 'fore.
With my remains tamed in languid sultry
O you parcelled moor, be gentle to me.