The Words Are Wrong

I went to the cemetery to find you and saw your name carved in stone with two dates below, but something was wrong. I put my hands on the stone, closed my eyes and I felt for you in that place where we laid you to rest so long ago, but you were not there.

I could hear the song of the stone, feel the sunshine and the air from where it came. I felt the wrenching pull as it was ripped from its mother’s arms and tumbled down a mountainside where men began to hack it apart. I even felt the stone cutter’s hands as he gently searched for the beauty inside and began to free the new shape being born into the world of men, but I did not feel you.

I sat on the grass and stared at your name. The name your mother and father gave you, as you gave me mine and I felt a wrenching separation from those I love. My heart seemed to break in two and tears slid down my face. I did not feel them, but I saw them as they dropped onto the grass before me. One lay glistening, a tiny liquid bit of me and you two reflecting back into my soul. It was then I felt you.

Beside me in the grass and on the little white flower, I felt your smell wafting around me in tiny puffs of sweetness and I knew you were not under the stone, nor sleeping in the arms of the earth. Death’s sweet repose holds no dominion over you.

You are in the blades of grass and on those glistening petals. You have been carried on the wings of a butterfly into gardens filled with flowers and up into the clouds with the morning dew. The words are wrong. You did not die at all. You are simply reborn into the light.