Sonnet: What to do with the dead

We do not know what to do with the dead

So they slip through the sermons and flowers,

And the freshly-sown grief and the words left unsaid 

While filling leaden seconds and hours.

They lie not in tombs, nor in the soft Earth; 

There’s no casket that’s fit for their keeping,

Remembered and mourned, awaiting rebirth

They alone have no time now for weeping.

As life fades away, depart then we must,

Hoping leaving is just a returning;

Psalms about ashes returning to dust

Tell us nothing of grief or of yearning.

The dead have only this one gift to give:

Remember death, but don’t forget to live.