Burying Friends
NG friends is not a pomp, Not, indeed,
Roman: Lacking the monument, Heroic stone; Nor is it an obscuring parasol, The pad of customary gloves and cries And a black leather mourning-carriage Hung between death and the beholder's eyes. This little bin of cancelled flesh Strode the earth once, Rubbed against men— But that's all done. A gentle elegy, a tear or two, May charm the grave-diggers, no doubt, But nothing can count to these incongrous ruins. Their commercial value is not worth speaking about. Only it seems not a burial Of irrelevant sods, But a lopped member From this my body; Almost, in fact, a tiny amputation, A paring of biography, thrown in there. And he has thieved his own life away And something from mine.
Farewell, thou pilferer!
Kenneth Slessor
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