A green field adorned carefully
with aged and ancient jewelry--
White stones heading mounds composed
    of softer, sweeter grass.
Marble faces silently
are telling stories faithfully:
Numbers, letters carved in stone
    Below reliefs of brass.
  Memories they would pass.

I hear the words that they recite
In echoes, as if black and white.
They speak to me with deaf ears, as
    they won't hear my response.
I'm moved to tears when they invite
me to imagine all that might
have happened when their earthly bodies
    Held their lives ensconced.
  Now stones speak nonchalance.

Eight sole years and then three score,
from ‘eighty-six to ‘fifty-four:
The fading chiseled numbers speak
    a man of sixty-eight,
But next to him, the story’s more:
a wife who passed in ‘seventy-four.
Between their rests, these lovers
    Had a twenty-year long wait,
  Now joined beneath the slate.

Another, titled "Edwin Jones"
Had flowers carved into his stone
And roses as if gold had once
     Adorned his resting place.
Now his grave is left alone
With no one left to visit bones
of an old man whose friends have all
     been buried by his space,
  With memories erased.

I wonder if their resting places
really mirror how their faces
Impacted the world around that
     to us they convey
Men and women's daily races,
Fights, repentance, and embraces;
Now passed on, but what they've done
     Defines our lives today.
   They teach, then fade away.