Part 1 - Earthbound Angels Made of Stone - An Epic

We dwell in quiet places Where mortals sleep eternally We earthbound angels made of stone Keeping vigil for thee Stone angels carved by human hands In honor of the dead Giving meaning to the path Where mortals dare to tread And if you care to rest a spell In this quiet place we dwell You too will come to understand The stories we will tell Stories that are etched in stone For each departed soul And their journey here on earth The greatest stories ever told So listen very carefully With your heart and not your ears And with our silent voices Let us take you through the years Of one dearly departed And her life of joy and tears From the cradle to the grave A life of courage and of fear Now step with us into this realm Where earth and heaven meet And see the petals of this Rose Strewn o'er the cobbled streets And like the rose that bears her name May her beauty bloom again In all its glory in this story Amid the thorns that still remain Let us tell you of a child Born in eighteen twenty-five A little girl so pure and shy She made the willows sigh In a land where wooden ships With canvas wings did fly On a wailing wind With the moon and the stars Their only guide A child born without a sin The way that life begins Who at the age of seventeen Lost her innocence To a Captain Twice her age Who on that fateful day Took away her freedom When she became his slave How at the age of 17 She finally came to know The bitter thorn that lies beneath The beauty of the rose As she hid his seed Beneath a frock Of slavery and shame And her face beneath a veil of tears Each one Cried in vain Bought by this man A widower Raising babes that weren't her own She called upon her inner strength To make this land her home While he remained for months at sea She waited patiently Until the day when one-by-one The leaves fell from the trees As autumn died And heaven cried Her baby girl was born While all the village gossips Looked at Rose with utter scorn A stranger in a strange strange land A Rose that whites called black In that moment realized There was no going back She named her daughter Amber With hair the hue of flames A child of God who town-folk dubbed The Captain's child of shame And like the thorns that laid in wait beneath her mother Rose This child would one day come to know The evil they would sew A child with blood of black and white A heavy cross to bear Who could not In her innocence Conceive The evil lurking there ``` The remainder of this epic can be read in Part Two posted in my next entry. Please proceed.