Questions

Empty graves, empty graves
What is left in empty graves?
Hollowed tombs and songs unsung
Stilled tongues that would still drum
Quiet hearts that once did hum
Who would lie in empty graves?

Empty graves, empty graves
How might we fill the empty graves?
With loud and laughing thunders
The flashes of life's brief lightning
The corn cut soon after ripening
Would they fill our empty graves?

Empty graves, empty graves
How will you fill your empty grave?
With fury and violent rage
Called to war, my glory's wage
Hear, now, the trumpet's page
Fool, would you fill an early grave?

Empty graves, empty graves
How would you fill that empty grave?
Scribbled pages from quiet age
Whispered song to silent walls
Private dreams in darkened halls
Lonely to lie in my quiet grave

Silent graves, silent graves
Who would disturb quiet graves?
What ore is sought from that tomb?
Why call them from their final gloom?
Who would mine the silent graves?

Silent graves, silent graves
When the trumpet calls, emptied graves
What remains in empty graves?
When last Trump blows, what remains?
Guts and dust and the bones
Dreams and lives, or quiet minds?
When they crawl forth on that great night
What will be left behind, in the terrible light?
What will answer that final call
Creep forth behind every caul?
What will they leave in hollowed halls?
Pits and holes and abandoned, falls
The dust of pillaged ages
The rattling of emptied cages
What remains when all is empty graves?

Build my cask with cheap cardboard
Bury my husk with lime quick-poured
Seed my heart with politic terms
I go to make covenant with colonied worms
Not for me the hollow cave
I would not leave an empty grave.

5/30/01