Daily Prompt: White Rose

A winter’s day

And already the sun is low on the horizon

A chill creeps through the air

As the light sinks.

The graveyard settles into shadow

And night.

At my feet lie the dead.

Buried beneath the cold clods

Stones at their heads that read

Of poetic loss and grief at their passing.

“Beloved son”, “Loving mother,”

“Sacred to the memory.”

The once living

Now lie inanimate,

Six feet under.

Waiting: for what?

For eternity, for heaven or for hell?

Certainly, their release from this life passed,

Is there death, new life, resurrection?

For this is a Christian place.

As I turn to go,

I retrieve a discarded rose,

White and innocent in the dewy grass

And I place it on the moss-covered  wall

Between the sacred land and the unconsecrated.

Is it for me to sympathise in death or

To celebrate of the life to come?

 

We shall all find out in time.

 

Words and photo copyright to Englepip©

via Daily Prompt: Sympathize

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Daily Prompt: The Giraffe

Don’t be puzzled at my jigsaw coat.

It’s strange but it works for me.

I’m an ungulate mammal,

Who roams  the plains

From Niger right down to the South.

My neck is the longest

You’re likely to see

I can reach up high and down low.

My legs,  any supermodel would admire,

And I can run fast cross the plains.

 

But there is a problem:

When I want a drink,

I have to shrink

To reach down, there’s only one way

Keep watch: take care

And then spread them away

And trust there’re no predators around.

My eyes and eyelashes are large and brown

With a softness and warmth that’s endearing:

I am curious too, looking at you,

In fact to humans, I seem quite alluring.

Yet do you all know what you’re losing

As our habitats you are abusing?

We have  six species but some are endangered

Or vulnerable and fragile in numbers.

Though we’re large in size – extremely tall,

It doesn’t mean we will survive.

In Africa fewer than elephants wild

We need  you to realise now.

Save our habitat please ;

Please find out how

Do you really want to lose us?

 

 

 

 

Words and photos copyright by Englepip ©

 

Giraffe numbers have fallen nearly 40% since the 1980s and by 95% in some areas.

For more information on giraffes click here

via Daily Prompt: Puzzled