I heard they buried you in the church cemetery, back in that shady corner where saints watch over rustling leaves and stones whose names call out to any who happen by.
But your stone cannot cry out “I was that little girl in the church that Sunday when the May sun came through the stained glass in shards of red and blue and fell warmly on the back of my lace veil. My coal black hair framed a face of cream and innocence.”
I cannot stand by your grave and tell all who happen by how on that morning all of Heaven enveloped you in a velvet ray of light and I begged Heaven to keep you always from the dark.
Your stone cannot cry out “My mamma took her life when I was a baby. Prison took my daddy through a revolving door,”
I cannot stand by your grave and tell all who happen by how you ran through my yard with my little girl and laughed your sunshine into the world. How you encouraged our little dog to run up the cellar steps and I saw in you triumph and courage.
I heard two years ago that you had your own babies and were doing well. I thanked Heaven.
I heard two weeks ago that the dark had found you.
Of course, I thought, it seeks to annihilate all the lovely things. Lovely things with deep pains that are in need of numbing, numbing shooting deeply into their veins.
I now stand by your grave and say to Heaven, “Remember this is your little girl.” I hear Heaven say “Shoosh now, we are rocking her in our velvet arms.”