EULOGIUM

Strange, how self-preservation

inspires such ornate speech,

such poignant expression...

Furtive, conspiratorial whispers

yield to moving eloquence

about your beauty,

about your numerous virtues.

Dust laden, mildewed verbiage,

platitudes stowed away

in those sunless cellars they

call minds, these are

this world's parting gifts to you.

Through a veil of numbness, I

watch them as they spout

grandiloquent verbs and phrases 

culled from a thesaurus

yellowed with age, punctuating

dissemblance with impassioned

sobbing, as if to drown out

echoes of their own cruel design.

Yes, your silence fell too long on

deaf ears. They shall now 

outdo themselves and each other

in their eagerness to reference

you in the past tense.

I shall favour brevity
just this once, my dear sister:

"Words could not fill the spaces

into which you breathed life.

No, these are merely unwitting

vehicles of your trespassers' guilt.

You shall be avenged."

© 2015 Lily's Verse

Lilium Candidum

Image: THE YOUNG MARTYR

Source: www.wanderlustlust.com

Artist: Paul Delaroche