When I Am Laid In Earth, at Highgate

“When I am laid in earth
may my wrongs create
no trouble in thy breast.”

In the silence of dappled light,
the endless dead press against me,
lithe and soft-footed as hungry cats
at dinnertime.

Each headstone a mnemonic of life.
Some clearly written on stern granite:
father, mother, beloved son, wife, only brother
born and died and, often, some poignant detail
of how their measured time was spent.

Other engravings worn by the years
have liberated their owners from
the rigid boxes where life trapped them.
The coffin and the ravages of weather
finally set them free.

If ever in a moment of elation
or in the grip of carnal delight
I escaped the sentinel of mortality,
here in Highgate no longer.
Everywhere is evidence of
the inevitable end of our stories.

And if, in a flight of lightness
I fancied myself pure spirit,
here is proof of the lie;
If I denied my body, or some
forgotten lover refused it,
it will matter very little.

The hungry ivy will cover me,
The blind and questing roots
embrace me in slow, damp arms.
The earth will devour me,
with loving equanimity.

(title & quote taken from the opera ‘Dido and Aeneas’ by Purcell. Sung by Jessye Norman)