Tag: death

Sneak Peek!

~ emichpoet ~ 1 Comment

The Bones in the Garden, my second book of poetry, is going to be released very soon, so I thought I’d give a preview of one of the poems in the collection. The poem I’m reading here is “The Bones in the Garden”, from which the title of the book gets its name. It’s one of my favorite poems and I’m excited to share it with you!

Just some quick background: this poem started as a write for a contest. We were tasked to do three things: we had to start the poem with the words “tell no one”, it had to take place in a garden, and it had to have an air of mystery about it. As I began writing, I crafted the first sentence, which had this lovely, melancholic rhythm to it, and then I envisioned a narrative around it. It was rooted in the darkness of the brutality of racism, and once I saw it in my mind, it was all she wrote.

Please feel free to comment and share!

Lost Rites

~ emichpoet ~ 2 Comments

This poem was crafted after I read and watched a series of articles and reports about the state of Mississippi burying unidentified persons without notifying their families. Click here for a link to the series on this issue from NBC news.

How They Buried Me in Mississippi

They buried me in the dirt,
in old soil with others like me:
souls that were lost to misdeeds or crime,
to misfortune or calamity.

They buried me without regard
for my mother, my cousins, my brothers;
those who had looked for me day and night,
with no help from police or their officers.

They buried me in secret
behind a blue curtain of lies;
they said they reached out to my folks,
but I know they didn’t try.

They buried me without ceremony,
with no words or even preamble.
It didn’t merit their time, they said
because I’d been found among the brambles.

They buried me without a tombstone
to mark the place where I now rest.
They put me in an old cheap box,
making no inquiry into my death.

They buried me in a pauper’s field
because to them I was an unknown.
It never occurred to them at all
that I had family, friends, or a home.

Now I lay here where I am buried
in this pauper’s field for the damned;
loved ones to never know our fate
and condemned to this no man’s land.

--Elizabeth Michaud.  
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