Abney Park
What do they mean, these half-draped urns
that line this dismal avenue
like spent light bulbs, interspersed
with wreaths and crosses, and a few
pale unconsoling angels? Yards
away the traffic ebbs and flows,
while we tread these yew-needled paths
past late-Victorian curios
as though aboard a phantom ship
where all are safely stowed below
who boarded it so full of hope,
but may not ever disembark
what is – we think, but do not know –
an erring and uncaptained ark.
David Callin
Abney Park is a garden cemetery in East London.
