(I am participating in the March Slice of Life challenge via the Two Writing Teachers site. Slice of Life is the idea of noticing the small moments. I have been a participant for many years and each year, I wonder if I will have the energy to write every day. This year, I am going to try to coincide it with my daily poetry writing, and intend to compose small poems on small moments. We’ll see how it goes …)
Note: I had to bring some library books back to the bin (libraries are shuttered) and went the long way, driving a secondary route, if only to break up the day. My eye caught something at the top of the hill near the old Northampton State Hospital. A large wreath, with green flowers, set against a memorial stone that I already knew the history of, since it represents a terrible moment in my city’s history when prejudice and bias took the lives of two innocent men. Echoes of these injustices still ring out today, if slightly muted by the Pandemic. Someone remembered. Someone always remembers. Sorry for the downer verse. – Kevin
Day Nineteen
Someone left a wreath
on the stone on the hill
by the hospital where
they tried, and killed,
two men, immigrants,
two hundred years ago,
for the crime of being Irish,
and people by the hundreds
came out to cheer;
A rock memorial decorated
with green flowers and dedicated
as reminder of some things
never changing, even still;
The Other is always us,
always in us, always
wearing wreaths on the rock
on the hill near the hospital
More about this historical event: http://historic-northampton.org/daleyandhalligan/daleyandhalligan.html
Peace (in noticing),
Kevin