Memento Mori

My friend Yvonne Thompson (@yvonnert) from Melbourne, Australia, yesterday tweeted a fascinating link to the Victorian photographic phenomenon known as Memento Mori, in which the dead were photographed, in an era where relationships to both death and photography were very different from what they are today.

One of those photos has inspired me to write a little poem, only the second poem I've written since leaving school (the first one was written on Tuesday on the train to London), so please be sparing in your criticism at this early juncture.

A modern memento


We fought, we nursed, but could not save,
Our dearest daughter from the grave.
And as we toil through deepest grief,
We clutch the thin threads of relief.

For ere she crumbles down to dust,
She will not disappear from us.
The man said "Hurry, I'll take a picture,
Then add some colour to enrich her."

He brought his black box to our dwelling,
And what would come out, there was no telling.
One last time we embraced our lost one,
Still as death all three till twas done.

Strangers, yes, to this modern mystery,
Our family won't be lost to history.
From one black box, a memento beautiful,
Eternally captured - our daughter most dutiful.