Engraving on the Tomb of an Unloved Patriarch

May the light accept in death
what it refused in life.
May this cold-hearted scion’s breath
not linger like a scented wife.

He wasted all his woman’s charms
and she in turn, wasted on him,
withered like a drunkard’s alms
for want of joy and loving whim.

The country seat he habited
is like a cancer of the moor,
the rolling fields once rabbited
remain a dusty ballroom floor.

What we can hope is that his son
will bring to his bleak house the sun.