I met an codger leaving church one day—
Arresting me with yawning toothless smiles,
His face a raisin, eyes deep sunken, grey,
His wizened body cocked against a stile.
You do not know me, but I know you, he said
In soft and gentle tones I seemed to know;
A sense of burden in his face I read
And he went on in whispers, soft and low.
In the graveyard stands a blank faced stone
Ahead a mound, no words yet written there,
I’ve set it for you when you were newly born
And kept it waiting with a patient care.
Are you the reaper?! I blurted out in fear;
A messenger— your epithaph’s unclear.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.