The Stone Angel

By Peter Bowden

The stone angel stood at the edge of the old cemetery, her wings streaked with moss and time. Rain had worn soft grooves down her cheeks, as if she wept slowly for a century. The man came often, never speaking, just watching her with the kind of reverence that didn’t ask for answers. In his hand, a folded paper with a name no longer spoken aloud.

He remembered his mother telling stories under that angel’s gaze, of people who loved deeply, lost quietly, and kept walking anyway. The stories were not grand, just honest — a boy who left for war and never came back, a girl who grew roses too close to the frost. The angel listened then too, stone lips sealed, wings like pages that would never turn.

One morning, after the frost had lifted and the grass held the golden edge of spring, he left the paper at her feet. It wasn’t a letter, just a list of names — people he missed, people who made him. He turned and walked away, the wind brushing past like a whispered farewell; morning light in her eyes, not sorrow, not joy, but something older, a memory caught in stone, vanishing like smoke at sunrise.

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