| placed upon the gravemarkers worn smooth by their constant birth huddle against the dimming light to memorialize and mark the comings and goings of friends who have placed them there. To pray and pay tribute to their memory. They are gathered there like eggs in a nest and abandoned Their stone silence is sequestered by their patience and their stirrings may startle those who visit on moonless nights. Touching them with the lightness of a fossilized tear they tremble as they conduct our courage to realms of forgiveness they died long long ago i will return in the full radiance of morning to mark my passage with a stone i have come up from the river empty handed today © Rick Forman |