All Meet Where Roads End

ALL MEET WHERE ROADS END

The faded image on the coffin of stone
Was sleeping, sleeping all alone
Somewhere beneath lie remains
Of the person who was sleeping just the same.
As I stood in the church I felt the past
Coil its fingers around me cold and fast-
Fog and mist, fire and earth,
Breath and spirit pushing through earth.
Ice blue lips and beating chest,
All meet where roads end at Final Rest.

And what of life that lie between,
The sands of time the tide washed clean?
Was it blown away to dust,
Bone to ash and sword to rust?
This church to me was godless gloom
A cross in a beeswax polished room
The man had been robbed by Time - a thief
Who tossed his name to the wind to speak
And wore away the stone that traced
The once clear features of his face.

And yet, I was sure as he slept on
There was someone in the beyond,
Someone just beyond my grasp
Who waited, waited till the last
And even now, as dust remains,
Her ghostly lips still speak his name.

As I left that lonely place
I was sure I sensed a trace
Of something past that yet still lives
That lie beneath the coffin lid.
I believed it to be love living on
Long, long after the lovers are gone:
To this very moment she speaks his name,
Somehow the soul of their love remains
And in the place where all roads meet
They walk hand-in-hand to Eternal Sleep.