Corunna Cemetery

CORUNNA CEMETERY

Planted when it first began

to take in guests, four giant pines

mark the boundaries.  In between,

a motley gathering of stones

still celebrate the despatch

of first settlers and local swells,

better folk from another age:

Crapps, Thompsons, Neguses and Snells

dot the empty space.  Every now

and then some round-eyed zealot hauls

his slasher over the bare spots,

keeping the grass low, the snakes out.

You can’t see where the paupers lie,

nor the Chinese – no cemetery

but this would have them – their grave poles

with Chinger script tidied away

years back.  Only the stones remain

to tell the world “Remember Me”.

There’s more to it, though. Try to see

it through Chinese eyes, aslant

at a universe in which cause

and effect don’t have to exist,

they chose to be obedient

to Heaven’s immutable laws.

In Time’s mill we are less than grist,

but a soul’s willing sacrifice

transforms the future that will come.

Worthy of an emperor,

this was the perfect burial place:

the centuries are lightly worn

on a steep hill, watching a lake

through which an immense ocean breathes

twice a day, and at their back

a mountain where dragons dwell

and they once mined gold before

they came to this dark, fertile soil

and, blending with Earth’s energies,

released all their souls’ power

into generations still unborn.

Leon Trainor