Time's Up

Green Day - Boulevard of Broken Dreams

Time's Up

Stones In Neat Rows Stand Silent
Grass so perfectly cut
An occasional flower
A shade tree creeks softly
in the breeze.

Dark shadows
and soft gray light
separates the
letters and numbers
etched
Upon the cold
still gravestones.

Moss grows
Ants walk
Bees Buzz
Butterflies dart
On an otherwise
Typical Day
In this - the city
of the dead

Older stones speak
to each other
For no one visits now
All relatives long dead
Only the odd rambler
The misguided teenager
The historian
Tread upon their soil

Many are damaged
Feebly presenting
the Names.

Oh the names.
The countless names
and dates.
Long forgotten.
But so very important
So very very important
long ago.

But it is the newer stones
Which are saddest of all
For they are so new
in appearance
That they could have been
erected days ago
yet have been here
for many years.
And even decades.

Upon these shiny stones
Are the photographs.
Pictures of those who have passed
Etched with modern precision.
The deceased stare back
from their own grave stones
Smiling

There are children here too
Children killed
In auto accidents
Reported in long
ago faded newspaper clippings

The sixteen year olds.
Bright beautiful
High School queens and kings
Fallen.
Lives cut short
In senseless carnage
Never to know adulthood
Always to be mourned in
Youth.

Oh the pain.
Oh the searing never ending pain
Of parents barely able to live
After losing their beloved
Children.

Mommy's little baby.
Daddy's little princess.
Now lay silent
Under feet.

Coffins laying within
dark rich dirt
wet brown clay
Awaiting
Resurrection.

Parent's solemn vows to "Never Forget".

We shall never forget you our beloved
son, or daughter. We shall never forget.

The sickly sweet smell of wet rotting flowers
It rained not long ago - fills the air
but only momentarily so.

The distant sound of a lawn mower fills the void
But only temporarily so.
And then there is silence.

A deafening silence
And then
Years pass.
Parents die.
And join their fallen children
One to the right
One to the left
There is a family here
Of sorts

And the surviving children
Now parents or
grandparents themselves
leave notes
And flowers
And keep the vigil going
just one more generation
While they still can
Before that family
That precious family
Finally
winks out.

Some simply stop
In their cars from the road
And look
At the stone
Which cast a shadow
Upon their loved one's grave

They wonder
Is this what it all comes too
Is there any meaning here?

Are we meant to live only to die
And then be forgotten?
After those who knew us
Those who loved us
Grow old
And die themselves?

Is this all there is?