This granite wall may startle you
with its listing of our dead,
but if you’ll let your heart respond,
the wall speaks life, instead.
Unlike our walls that keep things out,
this wall serves as a bridge
linking hearts and memories
from the dead to we who live.
While memory may fade with time,
our pain somehow stays new.
Yet we leave our heartaches at the wall,
no longer torn in two
by sorrow that cuts like a knife,
leaving festering regret.
Instead, our healing has begun,
and we find our faces wet
with tears for loved ones gone ahead,
while we somehow still live.
And we marvel at the message
this black wall has to give,
that Love stops not for death nor time,
but is guaranteed to last,
and healing is within our reach
once we accept our past.
–mvy 1991 —