Gravestones & Memories

Cemeteries are houses
For old memories
If we visited them
To really visit the dead,
We'd want to see their bodies
Like those macabre bugs:
Stuck in a piece of
Transparent plexiglass
Frozen forever
As they looked while alive
 
But we don't want that
We know they are gone;
If they still looked alive,
It wouldn't change that.
 
So we go and we look at a stone
A stone that says "Father" or "Mother"
A stone that says "Beloved"
A stone with dates and a name
That bring to our minds
The person who lived between those dates
Who wore that name
 
But as soon as the family
Go to graves of their own,
Nothing is left but a weathered stone
And no one is left to weep for the lost
Except for the Father in Heaven, alone.