The Loneliest Place

 

There’s a tall wrought iron fence

A thicket of dead leaves piled against it.

Somewhere in the trees

Below the endless gray sky

A crow caws out displeasure

At the change of seasons,

The failure of fall,

The woe of winter.

It’s the loneliest place

A garden full of stones

Stones with names

And dates and brief epitaphs

Together Forever

Resting in His Arms

Sweet Wife, Devoted Husband

The chill wind wanders

Amid the stones

Tossing leaves from its path

Lingering at an obelisk from early last century

Curling around a mausoleum

With its stout wooden door

Locked to keep out the living.

A scattering of flowers are shriveled and shedding petals

Mortal like the quiet ones buried here.

It’s the loneliest place

Yet all of us will one day visit

Some to linger for a moment, an hour

Some to stay

Till trumpets call to the dawn

and bring us to His presence