At a Funeral by Dennis Brutus

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Black, green and gold at sunset: pageantry

And stubbled graves Expectant, of eternity,

In bride’s-white, nun’s-white veils the nurses gush their bounty

Of red-wine cloaks, frothing the bugled dirging slopes

Salute! Then ponder all this hollow panoply

For one whose gifts the mud devours, with our hopes.

Oh all you frustrate ones, powers tombed in dirt,

Aborted, not by Death but carrion books of birth

Arise! The brassy shout of Freedom stirs our earth;

Not Death but death’s-head tyranny scythes our ground

And plots our narrow cells of pain defeat and dearth:

Better that we should die, than that we should lie down.