Mindful be

Again, youth's had its terrible fling,

reckless, carefree, bubbling thing,

now streams of cars flow through the town,

head for the plot in cemetery ground.

*

If only young eyes could have seen,

felt the hopeless sorrowing,

known the grief and felt the pain,

of friends and family by the grave.

*

The preacher says what he has to say,

but you don't answer, you've gone away,

left us here to weep and sigh,

to remember you as years crawl by.

*

Young life's a wild, tempestuous thing,

trying out its fledgling wings,

careless, free, racing to and fro,

seeking all there is to know.

*

Now its finished at least for you,

we who are left, we grieve for you,

robbed of your warm personality, we

learn how fleeting is our humanity.

*

In that, you may not have died in vain,

a warning giving to those who remain,

life is a precious, quicksilver thing,

contained in a mortal, disposable frame.

*

Enjoy by all means what freely abounds,

of life in your family and all that surrounds,

mindful please be, if tragically finished,

we who remain will be sadly diminished.

*

Dennis Crompton © 1995