by Emma Stone

Created on: July 07, 2010

Forever Alive

Jewelled streams of starlight kiss that weathered wall

Overgrown with twinning ivy and wild aubrietia left to sprawl

And hundreds of years have circled past since its foundations secured the spire

Since the now fossilised, charcoal, rafter wood responded in harmony with the choir

Just a stolid ancient ruin that received no clemency from the ravages of time

Once the beating heart of society heralding her brethren by her enchanting chime

Now broken, battered and abused forgotten in time’s sprightly dance

Eclipsed by haughty hulks of trees, saplings planted for remembrance

There’s warmth in the endearing stone like living palms combine

A sentient sympathy of kindness and recognition, the expanse of years realign

Its purpose compassion and comfort of the Divine, an unshakeable centurion

To guard, bless and bear witness to the soul’s secret communion

Outside the moon sinks into watery, diamond, splinters of oceanic glass

And a salty wind whips through the trees.  But amid the unruly grass

Once buried by the centre aisle, a solemn quiet and stillness imparts

A sweeping contentedness taming warring, searching hearts

And from the cracked crevices of eroded mortar a sweet melody sings

And a ghostly presence tickles the skin like silken angel’s wings

Russet leaves whirl and fall like confetti and suddenly the earth energies trigger a scene

A couple entranced in each others glance; hands warmly joined.  A snow queen

Pure, devoted and true, shakily whispering ‘I do’ in cascading yards of Chantilly satin

And a besotted boy with egregious smile bedecked in bridegroom fashion

An impermeable troth in honour of captured love’s expression

Cheers and laughter, crystal tears of joy, bathed the seeds that now blossom

In the present the heaven’s weep for them bursting with irrepressible emotion

The drip drop, pattering splots of rain collecting in a naturally ground basin

Like the devotional baptismal font of dedication.  The splash of water almost drowning

The bewildered cries of the precious infant, all rosy, podgy and squirming

In the benevolent strangers embrace while loving eyes linger upon her baby face

And heart’s promise to raise her in happiness and hope for life’s harrowing race

As the dark clouds billow and blow a farewell to steadfast stones

The rain eases and now only lightly tapes to awaken sleeping bones

In the unkempt wilderness of the sunken cemetery whose tombs are now worn

Unread and unreadable accept to those astral visitors who eternally mourn

Scrapping back the earth and growth and tracing antiquated script

Vows of memory, love and peace from lamenting companions are writ

Dulcet prayers and poets quote read and repeated over the generations

There the babe newly blessed, grown womanly by nature’s beautiful conceptions

There the fairytale lover’s lie resting after a long life’s labours shared

Bared in patience, endearment in each held glace, destiny’s potentiality paired

Interned in a single grave, their single heart many yesteryears ceased but forever beating

Mothers, sons, wise old men and avuncular friends by heaven’s design now waiting

But in this phantasmal plot, dejected and lost, shadows of memory walk

Reanimated and respected, vivacious in their estate, bound by the altar rock

Such vestigial emotion, transcending science’s sanction, in pounding chests doth broil

As psalmists song breathes through the trees and endless is man’s mortal coil

For ears that would hear and eyes and would see this place is a pulsing canvas

For love undeterred and footprints inerasable, present and future commingled with the past

Learn more about this author, Emma Stone.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.