Writers’ Epitaph

Epitaph on the base of the Haymarket Martyrs’ Monument, Waldheim Cemetery, Forest Park, Illinois

It’s not that our dreams were too big, or too small
Or they didn’t come true, just a bit, or at all,
And we sat disempowered, unable to say
We created our vision, in our dimming-down days.
It’s not that we failed, or we didn’t succeed
Because everything fails in the end, that’s agreed.
It’s that we imagined, and tried to create
A world that was better than accepting fate
And smiling as they piled upon us detritus
Made turds into pens into swords. We were writers.

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Stephen A. Linstead

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