The onlooker somehow fears this billowing
almost a smoke erupting from ancient landscapes
a smoke that a voice possesses
a voice that it owns, and uses to persuade,
sears into the mind with something
insubstantial yet tangible at its centre
as of a dark blaze suddenly ignited
shifting, drifting into a murderous haze
morphing into half-imagined shapes and shades

That sleep from which our loved ones do not wake
That drift into nothingness, that silence everlasting
Death takes, and leaves a mere shadow of each self
for us to place words in Memorium or urn upon shelf

An urn that, even if emptied of that ash
into a blaze in home hearth grate
would not as a glorious phoenix
our lost loved ones reincarnate

That sleep from which our loved ones do not wake
that drift into nothingness, that silence everlasting
that Death in all its arrogance our loved ones
for its own perverse satisfaction takes