Chink-chink, clunk-clunk, there’s no escape.
You spade us from the ground, then scrape
our skulls and excavate our teeth,
spread naked what once lay beneath
mute earth. You want to learn our name.
Ah, we are levelled, made the same.
This bone-yard bursting at the seams
is one deep bed of blended dreams.

Our bodies are transformed and rotten,
and what you are, we have forgotten.
We wish to feed the shrubs and trees,
to nestle wild birds as they please.
We are all light now. Do not weep.
Heap heaviness upon us. Let us sleep.

*****
Reading through ‘Maz’ Griffiths‘ poems collected as ‘Grasshopper‘, this piece felt suitably Halloweenish to share at the end of October.

Photo: One of the Batavia mutiny (1629) victims, excavated on Beacon Island and now displayed at Fremantle Shipwreck Museum. Wikimedia Commons, 7 April 2014, 06:19:51, Guy de la Bedoyere