Last Rights
By Oda Lisa
A walk through an old cemetery
Revealed long-ago folks’ history.
Some markers spoke of ancestry.
Etched Recordings of that year’s birth
And expiration dates punctuate
In so, Marking a here and there.
Elders, middle-aged, and babies,
There is no age limit to expiring.
No academia required.
Income has no real matter.
Death is a last-minute equalizer.
One epitaph honored a young mother,
To the right and left, husband and infant son.
Another was for a man killed by war.
Some tombstones tell these sad stories,
Names and inscriptions of precious loss.
Imagine, survivors in mourning clothes,
Weeping, wilted widows.
Then, at the end of the last granite row,
One stone marker said it all.
It needed no name or dates,
No poem or prayer quoted.
It proclaimed a joyous news
With a single word, “FORGIVEN”!
Here lies a hopeful point of view.
By bright faith beaming,
Death’s sting is dispelled,
And the human model, renewed.
Forgiveness pours from the heart of love,
From Christ, a pure beginning,
His promise, a new reality.
Finally, a soul can rest in Peace.
