If all we are is stone in the end by Omar Najam

taking a break from the parody newspaper covers to do something a little different today

After everything

Is it so absurd 

To crawl into the dirt 

To have an entire lifetime 

Swallowed 

Slowly 

Slower in the winter

And to have a name 

Said so many times

If one is lucky

During a life

Etched into rock

Quieted for eternity

Not a yell anymore

Or a praise or a gasp

Not sound at all

But simply curves in a surface

It is almost to say

I was never meant to still be

I was always intended

To be remembered

Is every good deed

Every regret

Every monotonous evening

Every sleepless midnight

Every exhausted morning

Every kiss on a lover’s eye

Every tear after departure

Are these all 

Just movements of a shovel

Pulling up the eventual dirt

Is life so fleeting

When crashed upon a heavier element

A thing from before we were born

A thing unchanged after we die

Are we just flickers

Rising

Before immediately falling

Or is there more

Do we become the stones

Dwell in them

Live on in granite

And marble

Are they changed by us

Shaped by us

In our lives

And by the lives we lived

Do we return

Do we reform

If all we are is stone in the end

Perhaps every rock has a name

Unetched, at times

And those collected

In the quieter solemn corners of the world

The hilltops 

Churchyards

Parks nestled into the new cities

If all we are is the stone in the end

May we keep the pensive afternoon wanderer company

Company in their solitude 

And remind them 

Before we had names

We were always here

And always will be