Discarded Headstones

Discarded Headstones

~Susan Martin, November 2, 2015

Here where broken pile on broken

Where marble stones and limestone

Crisscross together in a final, final resting place—

A place for remembrance, for collecting together the discarded, 

As though death were not enough

The threat of time further advanced a more fatal blow.

Forgotten.

Surely loved ones carefully selected 

The stone, the words, the size, its shape.

After all, what more can one do for mortal remains

Than to erect statues and tablets, signifying a final resting spot?

Imagine their dismay if, ages later, they were to return

To search for, but never find that grave so deliberately marked!

Or what if, in death, the specters of those passed were to rendezvous

At the haunts of those gone before?

Without this marker—without this label—how would they?

It is a good thing death is not such—

That these markers are merely comfort objects for the living

Not useful to those passed.

A good thing that, once lain to rest

Those bones, that dust

Does not need an identifier as it rejoins the stuff from whence it came.

And it is a comfort to think that

Once removed from our physical form

Our essence may engage each other

Void of any earthly marker—whether stone or bone

In the ether apart from atomic bliss.