The Graveyard

There was no fence around it and
the grass was getting high.
In fact, I barely noticed it;
I almost passed it by.

But then I saw those gravestones,
real old and faded white.
They all looked so forlorn there;
it was a dismal sight.

It was the saddest graveyard
that I have ever seen.
Some stones were leaning sideways
with weeds growing in between.

It really made me wonder
how it got to this sad state.
Why no one cared about it.
What caused this dreadful fate?

I wandered through the tall grass
and tried to read the names.
The etchings were all scratchy,
worn out by sun and rain.

And then I saw a bronze plate
from eighteen eighty-three.
This was the final resting place
for folks who now are free.

And that is when it hit me -
the dead here all were black,
forgotten now for ages,
history never looking back.

Just then I saw an old man.
He’d come to mow the grass.
He said he was the only one
who still performed this task.

He told me he had family
buried here so long ago.
He didn’t know which plot they had,
but he didn’t have to know.

He didn’t live nearby now;
he came here when he could.
The town did not take care of it
although he thought it should.

Now no one knows who owns the land
and that’s why no one cared.
It’s not the land that he thought of -
it was the blood that he shared.

I talked a little more with him,
I even said a prayer.
But if you were real close to me
you would have heard me swear.

The things we did to those poor souls,
that is our biggest shame.
The way we’ve treated them in death
was just more of the same.