A Picture paints a thousand words

Time has run out, the clock no longer ticks
Who lies beneath the weeping angel?
The stone etched name, faded, lost to history
I look upon her weeping form, her personal story aching to be told
Her face too young for tears so painful
Her beautiful hair is folded back, like wings that no longer fly
Yet there is a deep need to spread them, to be lifted once more
To reach home, warmth, comfort, a safe place to be.
I found myself wishing she could open her eyes
Are they blue, brown, or green with shards of light?
Would I fall in love, would her voice be soft, laced with music?
I didn’t come here to fall in love with a stone angel
I could hear her heart beating from a long distance
Her need to tell me about her yesterday’s swept over me
A feeling of standing too close to the fire…

Stepping back from her image as if touched by a flame
The light fading, I whispered, I will return tomorrow
reminding myself I was here to investigate the death of Joseph Frost
who died in 1832 at the age of twenty-eight.
Are her tears for one whose life was too short?
Returning now to the hotel, I wondered by whose hands she was made
Had they wept their own tears during the long hours of work?
Stories begin to fold into each other, blending, losing time
After eating a good supper, I slept, dreaming of my stone angel
How easily she had become mine.
She tells me the body that lies beneath her tears has returned to earth many
imes.
The soul that travels through these lifetimes belongs to her when she was
ore than stone. When she walked beside him.
She had hoped her tears would wipe away the years, yet eons have passed
nd stone she remains. Fantasy of an overworked mind, you might say. My mind tells me there is more to it. Our dreams may well be linked to stories yet to be told.
Like the feelings that triggered them that night. The ticking clock may have stopped for Joseph Frost, but my clock is ticking. Time is on my side, or so I believe.
With that in mind, I made my way back to my stone angel. She will be waiting after all.

Mulling over a conversation heard over breakfast, someone asking about the graveyard on the hill and my stone angel. As you might expect, my ears stood to attention. It appears the lady asking the questions wondered if there any stories about the stone angel standing over Jasper Frost’s remains.

Have people reported seeing her, kneeling beside the grave, minus her wings?
I felt my heart skip a beat to think my angel might have been flesh and blood at some time. I couldn’t let myself dare believe she might be real in my here and now.

As I walked, the sun warmed my back. The day would be good.

I told myself, reaching the great iron gate, that I entered the land of sleeping souls. One could say the land of the dead, only it is in the wrong place. It should be below my feet. Much further down than six feet.
I’m not saying that everyone lying here belongs in the land of the dead, or hell for that matter. Thing is, I don’t believe in heaven. So if souls exist, I had to wonder where did they go after the body gives up? Do we return to some great supermarket, waiting to be dished out again?

Not a bad idea, when you think sometimes you get two for one in the shape of twins. Then there are the broken souls, who seem to have come from a bargain basement garage sale. I often feel less than my full self, as if something may have been left behind when they sent me to meet my mother. I have no idea what I am talking about, or where these thoughts come from in the first place. Thing is once they enter your mind you are stuck with them. You end up shoving them around, like cold food on a plate. The fork in your hand, shifting strange thoughts from one side to the other, until your mind clicks back to the present and that moment when your thoughts become one delicious blank. Your sudden release sets of a rethink. You boil all down to one thought, what am I doing with my life?

The black marble headstone shone in the morning sun. Dark beacons of light for a small part of the day.
Slowing my stride, to read a few words. Sentiments the dead will never hear. Written by tear stained faces who no longer visit.
There she stood under the morning sun. A part of my mind hoped her tears would have dried, trying to imagine her happy with a smile on her beautiful marble face. Her tears remain, her body warm to my touch. Is the sun trying to give her life, to bring her back to the one soul she seeks to be with?

If only there was a way for the clock she holds to begin ticking. Old time returning widdershins. I know marble can never become flesh, no matter what kind of backward magic is tried.
Yet I hoped she lingered somewhere, waiting to receive a miracle and meet the one sweet love. To touch lives again, all pain of separation forgotten.

I wished my angel farewell, saying I would return someday to sit with her again. I have a love waiting, a home to go to.
That night as I lay waiting for sleep, I wondered how old my soul was, how many lives I may have touched. Did I, at one time, hold the hand of my stone angel? Am I the one she sheds her tears for?

Are we all twisted out of time…?

©anitadawes 2020