Under The Magnolia

Under a still blooming magnolia, I sit In a place of upright stones, names of mostly average folks carved in their hardened faces. Organized in rows, these stones do very little to contextualize the stories now forgotten, but instead show the wear and adornment, weathered into them by the falling mist and rains of this little valley of deaths memorial.

I ponder how close I’ve come to be lowered into one of these holes, covered by the rot and debris of a million years of life above ground. How I too will one day leave behind a brief tale of lies, spoken by those who pretended to know, yet in life, made zero effort to understand both the madness and joys of this complex yet simple man.

I wonder if they care to know the accounting of how many times this death was urged on by my own hand, or the number of times that contempt for follow through and procrastination saved the day.

Would it even matter that they knew not of his graces and heart, yet spoiled them all by the ignorance that mindless language can have? All of the dismissal; carried by voices of the blind and deaf, across the lines until all the words were murdered and his light cast into their own ideas of darkness and shadow.

Never considering that his pain is no different than theirs and that he always deserved to be held up in his fullness, not simply cast aside for his pieces.

Thankfully, as I write this, I am embodied in the knowing of the power it takes to not cast one’s self into the 6 foot abyss, and that courage is often met with opportunity and to serve that purpose is what keeps me further away from my own shovel.

The collapsed cages of meat, that once captured the souls of many, now lay lifeless in this place and have been largely forgotten; but as I sit under this still blooming magnolia, I remember in this moment, that I am not.

I remember me.

C. Cobb, 2024