Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

In pauper’s field, no flowers lie,
on our graves of chosen number.
How different is grief from public outcry?
There is no comforting answer.

Is God or the state our true gatekeeper?
Both took away our chance to say goodbye.
But which one silently buried us here,
in a pauper’s field, where no flowers lie?

They abandoned the need to notify,
to strangers in the newspaper.
Unknown to our families, that nearby,
were our graves of chosen number.

Death that is silenced is now a murder
of virtue, bureaucrats can’t justify.
Tell the news crew to ask the coroner,
“how different is grief from public outcry?”

We lived as people, but they say we die,
as “state’s property,” marked by the dollar.
When justice calls, and you apologize,
we will not give a comforting answer.

The cosmos measures the truth that matters.
Heaven’s busses may run late, but still ride,
a path for those whose hearts will remember.
History must hear our raucous reply
from pauper’s field, and so we try.