Final Sleep

[ArcheressRabbit]

Cool beneath my fingertips

solid, irrevocable,

this stone which marks the last slumber of the dead.

Is it quiet because it is somber?

Or because there is nothing to say?

Who knows?

Smooth to the touch are the markers of the newly buried

Crumbling, worn and wan are those who precede them

These stone faces will inevitably see more to come

Time changes even those whose lives have stopped.

Do they fade into memory because they can't keep up?

Or because this is how it was meant to be?

Who knows?

Flowers are lovingly, solemnly placed for the first ten years or so

Visitors come grieving for half that time

then finally, only the curious and the devoted come.

And then those like me.

Do they stop coming because they have accepted death as conqueror?

Or because they have ceased to care, or worse, forgotten?

Who knows.

I don't.

That is why I return to the garden of the Departed.

Why I alone ask the questions never meant to be answered.

Where I grieve for the forgotten, the abandoned, the macabre celebrities

whose only fame was the way in which they passed.

I only hope that when I too, fall asleep forever,

someone takes my place.

[prick]

Very nice!