The World Wide Cemetery

March 3, 2024

Happy Birthday in heaven sweetheart

Arlene McIlravey <arlene.mcilravey@icloud.com>

March 5, 2021

Arlene McIlravey

Shelly Stokoe ✵ 1967-2014


Name at birth:	Shelly Patricia Stokoe
Date of birth:	March 3, 1967
Place of birth:	Henderson Hospital, Hamilton
Date of death:	November 6, 2014
Place of death:	Dunnville War Memorial Hospital
Resting place:	Dunnville
Submitted by:	Arlene McIlravey

Do not stand by my grave and weep;
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glints in the snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain
I am the gentle autumn’s rain
When you awaken in the mornings hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight
I am the soft stars that shine at night
Do not stand at my grave and cry
I am not there. I did not die.

Visitors & Flowers

Daniel McIlravey ✵ 1937-1996 (Father)

Seshendra Sharma ❀ Visitors & Flowers

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25 January 2021

FLOWERS AND SILENCES

The dim darkness-the diffused light-dimness of one merging into the other-imparting more length to the long trees that are standing like stretched out shadows wearing stars in their hair- silence is imparting more depth to the darkness in this advaita where darkness is merged into silence, my mind wakes up, now not only sound but even a ray of light is a violent disturbance to the profoundness of peace- in such moments deep truths unveil themselves-now I realise it is not sound but in silence melody lives-I am born out of flowers and silences- while passing my hand brushed against a flower, I asked ‘are you bruised? ‘‘Me or you’ smiling, the flower questioned back- the heart of my pen broke and split blood; – I do not know which paper can bear this pen-In the gigantic silences of forests, which touch the blue skies, the carpenter bird pecks at the trunks of great trees which echo, far reaching sounds-what can he do among the tiny crotons?I ate days like fruits-now I eat drops of tears like grapes-frightened by the sun took refuge under shades-sitting on the pavement eating dreams from eyes like ice cream with spoons- measuring my life with dark evenings- I distributed my wealth once with metres, now I scatter with handfuls my future letting it fly in all directions-I washed my heart in tears and dried it over poetry- walked past wearing people on my body like shawls-in the assemblies of flames; in countries abroad I raised my gypsy voice and sang mixing earth and sky-this country is the graveyard of my genius- however fast I walk the distance remains the same. This land is thirsty for my blood, it is snoring in the little shades of pigmy trees-I picked my pen and dipped it in the sun to write a summer song for my nation-

– Seshendra Sharma

25 January 2021

THE BURNING SUN

I am the drop of sweat, I am the sun
Rising from the hills of human sinews,
Hearts are my friends
I live in the city of sufferings
Although in my fist, I hold an ocean of history
I sculptured man silently –
Wings that carried birds
Did not bring them back;
I am drinking thick darkness
In the haunts of those forests
Which cry out in agony for the birds
That did not return;
Clutching at the garment woven of memories
I twine myself to the feet of my country.
Heads that were hanging to the trees
Smile as flowers today in the branches
Hearts that received the bullets
Ring in temples of our land like bells;
Blood of theirs nights squeezed and offered
By how many to bring forth this day;
They are hanging like icicles
On the ridges of our roofs;
Look, it is an iron fist I have;
I shall excavate the flame of light
From the rocks of time –
I will set fire to the sleep of resisting centuries –
To the rivers that run in passion after the sea
I cry halt, command them
To paint the colourless arid lands in green,
Invite back the smile which fled away
In terror from this land,
To the butterfly trudging hungrily for a flower
I shall give a garden –
Come children, eat
Bits of nights dipping them in moonlight,
I shall not allow the sun to cheat this sacred day;
If he wakes not on the horizon of this land
I shall tear my burning heart
And put it in its place
With the scarlet of my living flesh
Illuminate the earth
I am the drop of sweat, I am the sun
Rising from the hills of human sinews –

Seshendra Sharma

Seshendra Sharma ✵ 1927-2007


Name at birth:	Seshendra Sharma
Date of birth:	October 20, 1927
Place of birth:	Nagarazupadu Village
Date of death:	May 30, 2007
Place of death:	Hyderabad, India
Resting place:	Hyderabad
Submitted by:	Saatyaki S/o Seshendra Sharma

Visionary Poet of the Millennium
An Indian Poet Prophet

Seshendra Sharma was one of the most outstanding minds of modern Asia. He was the foremost of the Telugu poets of his age, who turned poetry to the gigantic strides of human history and embellished literature with the thrills and triumphs of the 20th century. A revolutionary poet who spurned pedestrian and pedantic poetry equally, a brilliant critic and a scholar of Sanskrit, this versatile poet breathed a new vision of modernity into his vernacular. Such minds place Telugu on the world map of intellectualism. Readers conversant with names like Paul Valery, Gauguin, and Dag Hammarskjold will have to add the name of Seshendra Sharma the writer from India to that dynasty of intellectuals.

Rivers and poets
Are veins and arteries
Of a country.
Rivers flow like poems
For animals, for birds
And for human beings-
The dreams that rivers dream
Bear fruit in the fields
The dreams that poets dream
Bear fruit in the people-

The sunshine of my thought fell on the word
And its long shadow fell upon the century
Sun was playing with the early morning flowers
Time was frightened at the sight of the martyr-
– Seshendra Sharma

An era of scholastic excellence and poetic grandeur has come to an end in the passing away of Gunturu Seshendra Sharma.