Magpie Tale for this week

Wherein the picture is provided by Magpie Tales

and the description,

in verse or in prose, is provided by the participants. 

Kipling could,

and would,

have dealt

with this

small piece

of tombstone,

in seven

minutes,

maximum,

and told

a full tale

of a full life lived and done.

But no one

was Kipling

but Kipling

just as

no one

is me

but I,

so instead

of wanting

to be him,

all I can do is try.

Julia, it says here, died in 1858,

in the cold end of November,

perhaps weather caused her fate.

Someone named Wilson loved her,

a husband, a parent, a friend,

who raised this stone above her,

to mark out her place in the end.

But, like her, the stone was broken,

in pieces it shows to us

a little, a fragment, a token

of Julia, now turned to dust.