It's quite the contrast we're making, as we laugh,

all flesh and blood and fashionable dress

(I note the women specially, I confess)

to these leftovers of life – cracked shell and bone,

dead bodies pressed in mud that turned to stone –

that we lean over, point at, photograph.

But still we try to fossilize ourselves:

against the inferno and the funeral urn

(against the fact of dust to dust's return)

we pile on the mud of existence, layer by layer –

yellowing letters, photographs, locks of hair,

quaint immortalities gathering dust on shelves

or mounted under glass, or hung on walls

for tourist groups in exhibition halls.

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