According to French custom
I rented this grave for thirty years
in a leafy corner of a graveyard fifteen years ago,
thinking that I'd be in it by now.
I may never be in it, for I have also willed my body
to the Toulouse medical faculty, who of course
will be at liberty to refuse it
if it has putrefied too much for them to use.
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| Helleborus niger 'Midnight' |
3 comments:
Variegated periwinkle, cyclamens, soldiers-and-sailors, various bulbs and 'Midnight' Christmas Rose are amongst the plants. The pseudo-Celtic carving is by my semi-apt self.
I've always believed your grave was in your very own garden since you've shared a picture of it years ago. How convention of you, Mr Weir!:) M.
France has very strict burial laws. Unlike the British Isles where you can pretty well be buried anywhere not near a water-source and not with graveyard accoutrements of stone, in France you can be buried only in a public cemetery (which a churchyard is in this secular state). Most French cemeteries are pretty ghastly with hideous tombs and mausoleums unalleviated by trees, unlike the wonderful graveyards in Germany, or old ones in Ireland. But the newer of two cemeteries in Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val is surrounded by trees and overlooks the river. I chose the most sylvan corner.
Some people, mainly old aristocrats and the very rich, can be buried on their own properties by special dispensation, but this is not at all common.
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