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Forever the Stone

O.G. Rose
3 min readApr 21, 2025

A Poem by O.G. Rose

Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised.

Matthew 27:51–52

Photo by Dana Sarsenbekova

And the fingers — touching light a petal
of poppy, evanescent, trusted to wither,
from her, Mediterranean, with brown hair —
did not move. She was hopeful,
that her killed friend was not
of walking dead,
with black and up-curling skin,
like those who came alive in graves on Friday,
as the earth shook and rest in death
was no more. Under Rome and circus,
the living went on.

There was said to be movement and sounds in the burial sites,
outside the walls — the dead to break into the city.
“The cloth is still lying in its place,” one of the men said, and the other,
who arrived first, believed
he roamed. “Forever” — there was no relief from the experiencing,
the toiling, and under-going would go on
and on. The stone rolled.

She stood outside the tomb crying.
Even Sadducees might speak of living dead with empty eye sockets,
who could have comforted if not Yahweh’s
revelation of punishment to those who feared death that it’s sting
could be its withdrawal.
The people wanted a king, and so
there would be no death.

The least were first — there were whispers with rumors of war —
and next would come alive the rest, from God’s people to all the nations.
The disciples left and returned to where they stayed
to await the coming corpses. She looked inside the tomb
and saw two, just appearing, mere foreigners in white,
who asked about her weeping. The angels of many eyes and wings
were less terrifying than these who helped the body of her friend
leave. There would only ever-be an “and” and an “and” at a beginning,
and never a beginning without “and.”

The gardener asked the woman near the poppy a question.
She thought of a drip of water from a finger, out of touch, a hope in burning,
that would fall to the ground, then another, and then another,
until the drips were a puddle, and the puddle a stream,
and then when it was an ocean, the ocean would be the smallest of puddles
of what was yet to drip through all the time that would ever drip
and not have even begun. Yahweh was not bound to earth:
if the sun failed to burn and the air was ice, and all bodies were souls,
the souls would not perish and beg for water
to stop.

“Mary,” Jesus said to her.

And there was the time of her life.
Of food and broken bread.
Of laughter where time was too quick.
A preparing of food. A washing of feet. A woundedness.
She had wanted it all,
and nothing changed.
The word “forever” moved. “Forever” was light
and now. There could be a forgetting of passage in every moment:
moments did not have to pass. The sting of death
could be its withdrawal, but
even in death, death had no sting.

It was beautiful,

and the fingers on the petal
rose.

.

.

.

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O.G. Rose
O.G. Rose

Written by O.G. Rose

Iowa. Broken Pencil. Allegory. Write Launch. Ponder. Pidgeonholes. W&M. Poydras. Toho. ellipsis. O:JA&L. West Trade. UNO. Pushcart. https://linktr.ee/ogrose

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