Cremation
Our future ashes will well symbolize
The waste heap we have made of myths we shared;
And yet, though cinders say that flames have flared,
Our past doomed heat—with all which that implies.
Our embers will be cold, and represent
The numbness built inisde the pile of stacked
Neglect and wooden silence you have backed
With gestures that you never really meant.
My ashes and your ashes will not blend
In finely sifted, swirled oblivion;
Instead, our bodies and our souls have won
A sterile separation as their end.
The smouldering truth is this: the only fire
We built was one which licked up through Love’s pyre.
~ Phillip Whidden