Like a Library

A graveyard is like a library.

It is filled with stories begging to be told.

The towering marble headstones are hardcover lexicons of men and women who shape history.

The small wooden crosses with flowers at their base are the diaries of people with families, feelings, and a heartbeat.

A graveyard is like a prophecy.

Do I stand on hallowed ground?

Or is this just dirt, to which I, too, will return?

One day, my book will also draw to a finish.

A few will carry my memories and pass them on to a few others.

Then, my story will stay closed, a rock the only bookmark of the life I once was.

And I know dirt is not the end.

Breath flees the body, but the spirit returns to the maker, immortal.

But still, I wish I could hear these lives behind the epitaphs.

Husbands, wives, brothers, sisters.

1832 to 1891, 1902 to 1904.

She was loved.

Forever missed.

Fallen in battle.

These are the stories of people.

These are our stories, but their voices have grown silent.

For a graveyard is like a library.