Forgotten Stones
I walked into the far-left corner where the cedars thin and fade,
A patch of earth the sun avoids — a quiet, heavy shade.
No carved white headstones here, no marble warmed by morning light,
Just jagged stones half-buried, leaning crooked in the fading night.
The grass grows patchy here, as if afraid to claim the ground,
And every step feels softer, like the soil wants to swallow sound.
A chill moved through the tree line as if the wind had something to confess,
And I felt it circle round me, grieving lives it couldn't bless.
No names, no dates, no stories pressed into the waiting clay,
Just markers sharp with silence — cruel reminders of the names we let decay.
I knelt beside a stone gone smooth on one side, broken on the other edge,
A fragment of a life left unrecorded, buried beneath a vowless pledge.
I felt the weight of every absence settling heavy in my chest,
A ledger of the overlooked — the ones forgotten with the rest.
Each stone stood like a question we were never brave enough to ask,
Proof of how humanity fails when remembrance becomes a task.
I touched a jagged marker, felt it cold and tight beneath my hand,
And wondered who once stood above this grave, and why no one chose to stand.
The earth here holds a darkness older than the cemetery’s bones,
As if it memorized the sorrow of each life that died alone.
Peace isn’t found in doves; it’s in the graves the world won’t see,
Where dignity begins by facing who was denied their right to be.
So I whispered to their resting place what time refused to keep:
You deserved more than broken stones, more than this unremembered sleep.
I whispered to the stones again, though I knew they could not hear,
Because remembrance is a fragile mercy — and mercy rarely lingers here.
When I walked away, the shadows closed like they’d never let me in,
And the forgotten stones remained unchanged — as forgotten as they’ve always been.
Copyright © amber chism | Year Posted 2025
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