Essentially Hart Island

It's burden enough

to have to bury in ritual

those we love & engage

but to not know when

& where & how our kinfolk died

or whether & not they were ever tended to

is an act of indifference

on the part of our state

greater than the blasphemy

of relegating death

to a potter's field secreted &

unattended by the amulets

of food & drink or flowers' wreath

we would have placed

beside a prayer's shawl

such a state is treason

to the very core of what we mean

when we say, 'human'.

Louis Reyes Rivera

May 9, 2010