No funeral for roses

No funeral for roses
By Siki Dlanga

After the forbidden fruit.
If life is a matter of days lived.
Time of existence is limited
No hideous thing or beauty is spared
The rose is remembered while its petals are red lush.
Exquisiteness, colour, fragrance
It sheds and gets nothing back.
Decay is sure.
But there is no funeral for roses.

In funerals I’ve seen
Many roses thrown on the grave
Perhaps it is the softness of the petals
or the certainty of death
though we live and are beautiful
our death is as inevitable.
Life is brief.
Death is elusive and definite.
Mocking humouring the young

The end is not the worst
It is the first invitation
Holding you like a baby
Breast-feeding you the pleasures of life
that will have you deceased before you’re done living.
Picking at the rose ‘till it‘s a dry thorn.

Like Ozymandias’ fine empire
A boastful intimidating statue for all to see and tremble.
All the poet saw was a kingdom of rubble.
Ozy tricked by the illusion of immortality that eludes us all.
Cheated to believe we are invincible
So we live as we wish.
We steal, lie and demand our rights
After all we are the centre of the universe.

But there are no monuments for roses
Sweet death shrivelled up and crisp
It does not insist on living more than its due date
To live forever it must die

We are not roses
Our longing for immortality is not wrong
in Eden it was lost
The only hope is death
If we choose it before it chooses us
Plant ourselves in the soil of the original
undefilable immortal
We live forever
We no longer need statues
Our legacy has already begun
Death will not define it
Liberated from its poisonous pleasures
Life holds eternity
Life lives forever
exalted above all powers
forever life will be