I wrote the poem "Sleepy Shadows" several weeks before I took this photograph.

The poem wasn’t written to offer easy answers. It was written to give voice to the reality of grief. Anyone who has stood beside the grave of someone they love knows there are moments when words fail and only tears remain.

While walking through a cemetery at sunset, I noticed something I hadn’t expected.

The polished granite of a gravestone reflected the evening light and as I changed my perspective, a cross appeared in the reflection.

I didn’t arrange it. I didn’t add to it. It was simply there, waiting to be seen.  In that moment I was reminded of something I’ve been learning: grief is real, and death is an enemy. The stone is still there. The loss is still there. But sometimes hope isn’t found by pretending those things don’t exist. Sometimes hope is discovered by looking at them from a different perspective.

The photograph doesn’t erase the poem.

The poem helps me understand the photograph, and the photograph reminds me that the story doesn’t end where the poem does.

“We do not grieve like those who have no hope.” — 1 Thessalonians 4:13

Sleepy Shadows

Sleepy shadows on gravestones lie
Names and faces the day won’t see
Where grass withers and flowers die
Reminders of who used to be

Night is coming, the shadows grow

Like the tears flowing on my cheek 

Longing for you who lies below

I think of thoughts I should not speak

Take this pain for I am weeping
Days will pass but my heart is frayed
Tears are better spent on living
Your place in the ground I would trade

6/30/26