This weekend, we were in Prague. A beautiful city with lots to see including Vysehrad. We had never been to Vysehrad for some reason and so that is where we spent Saturday afternoon.
Vysehrad has some magnificent views of the river and the city. It also has a church – St. Peter and St. Paul. They charge money to look around the church so we did’t bother but we did wander around the churchyard. Don’t ask me why but that cemetery really creeped me out. It had a sense of something unpleasant and rotten. It left a deep and gloomy impression on me that I am yet to entirely shake off…
Cold aged stone has lost its polish
The words still legible mourn
Moss grows and the ground is damp
The place looks desolate and forlorn
A depressing atmosphere pervades
Even the sunlight seems pale and thin
Grotesque statues playing charades
Images of death or deadened life
Names and dates, etched long gone faces
Tufts of grass, withering weeds poke through
These cold and lonely resting places
Rotting human compost lies beneath
And one senses the despair and sadness
Signaled by the fading flower wreath
This isn’t so much a graveyard
As it is a shadow of hell
And I feel the occupants
Many of whom still here dwell.
