Flowers are for the Living

There are wilting flowers
hanging limp across a marble tombstone
petals are falling, covering the over-grown grass
in deep reds fading to black.
Blanketing the ground where
the body was laid down, so long ago.

Year after year the flowers come without fail
replacing the ones that have fallen into decay
becoming part of that hallowed ground.
Hues of grey and brown hang like a cloud,
the cemetery evokes a somber mood.
It is there, we speak softer,
walk lighter and remember
with unclouded thoughts the love, laughter,
and the loss of voices that will
no longer be heard floating on the wind.

The flowers offer a contrast to the solitude,
the brightness breathes new life into the gloom
and helps remind us that
beneath the overgrown grass and
the cold marble slab rests a body,
a body that once tasted the free air
and laughed with a melody
that reverberated through every dale and hollow
and loved, loved deeply
treasuring both family and friends.

That heart no longer pumps blood
to the body, the color is gone.
No rosy cheeks left to stand witness to Winter's chill.
Those lungs no longer have the power
to inhale the fresh smell of a first dew
or the strength to exhale wisdom gathered over the ages.

Though these things are now gone
the love lives on,
like the flowers we leave
year after year.

And it continues as long
as we remember to walk
the length of the graveyard
and leave fresh flowers.

The ritual is love removed from the realm of the idea
and made concrete by its action and repetition.

The flowers will always die,
as flowers must do.
It is the ritual that reminds us
the love never will.