From the clogged streets

of a bustling city,

a cutout corner of earth

gives visitors a quiet place:

a place to remember,

a place to shed tears.

My feet carry me

down the curved path toward

a shining black wall

covered in the reflections

of its surroundings.

On the outside, a

shadowed park;

on the inside,

a graveyard.

As I descend

farther into the wall,

my fingers trace

the individual letters

that merge into words.

Not words,

names,

thousands of names,

fanning out from the middle

like wings of a bird,

each name a feather

all able to fly as one.

I walk the path,

one end to the other,

seeing my reflection in the

black stone, smudged

by the cloud of foggy letters.

I walk slowly,

reading more names,

struggling to remember

those who I did not know

but mourn nonetheless.