Leprosarium

Upon visiting Carville, the last leprosarium in the U.S. located in Louisiana. At the time of my visit, only a handful of residents remained. It closed in 2005.

The graveyard yawns at my question,

Flexing its jaws beneath the live oak.

"What makes a ground holy?"

My voice sounds tinny and faraway,

Like a golden-age radio announcer

Lost in the static of these old walls

That nursed and imprisoned

The lepers of Carville.

The last Daughter of Charity

Remembers an old man

Stooped over the photograph

Of a wife well-loved.

"Holy ground," she says.

This is holy ground, sanctified

By struggles and hearts pouring out.

And I walk these halls,

Wondering at those who stay.

I shrink from the surreal truth

Of an old woman with no fingers

Who pedals her bicycle indoors,

Smiling at me as she passes

And turns the corner

In the only home she has ever known.

But she is home here

While I am a ghost with a question,

Walking the holy ground

Of the lepers of Carville.

Reviews

[andrew mitchell]

You write so well. Most entertaining macabre piece, great work.

[Eilis]

I live in a town that holds the ruins of what used to be the largest mental institution in the world. It was opened in the 1840’s when caring for the mentally ill was essentially locking them away. It has a long and sordid history and is open still today but just a fraction of what it once was. There are cemeteries everywhere. Some hidden, some covered over. There are segregated cemeteries that have been lost to the forest and whole plots full of unmarked graves. Tens of thousands of residents died over the years and many families never came to claim their relatives.

I couldn’t help but think of this when reading your poem. The places full of forgotten people may be in anyone’s backyard and even when those places are closed, it doesn’t mean they are empty of the energy of what happened there.

The hospital here is a huge complex of crumbling grand buildings. It’s just there to walk by and feel the pull of history. It’s considered haunted. My kids and I have walked the grounds and it’s the sadness you feel more than anything. The soul-cries of the forgotten.

Your poem does justice to this place you tell us about. It brings us with you and opens our eyes. Which I think is one of the best things poetry can do.

[Joli Dy]

"the places full of forgotten people" including ourselves at times. This is why we write.

[Perdition]

See, you are where I end my day, and for just such reasons...always unreviewable but for what little I could dare to say, for what I must feel in such things. Given this ghostly voice, the enigmatic emotions traveling in spirit far from angelic and yet very much in pain, still alive and impossible, given this place that must have an aura thicker than most and pulsating as if a lighthouse for the dead...given all of this and still the cemetery yawns at a question? What is it about these questions that beckon me from the soul, other than our infernal "why"? I read this and know that I too am adrift in illusion, a ghost in pain, housed within my madness, it helps if I remember how thin this difference is. You're remarkable, so from here, there is nowhere else to go. Perhaps back at the page, perhaps into the bottle, perhaps slouched over both. Doors open, pour a glass, and wake the candle~

[Joli Dy]

When I left, all of it came with me - the lot. I couldn't leave it/them there. I didn't expect the visit to change my life. It did. It still does.

[Perdition]

How could it not? But you found a place to bleed it out, if only to a balance~

[Joli Dy]

I'll bring time; you bring leeches and what a picnic we shall have.

[Ern M. Yoshimoto]

this is a morose vignette. the persona walks through a graveyard with questions about life and death ruminating in his brains. it is a bit eerie but also sombre. a gothic scenery is painted with stark colours by your words. very well written, it drew me in and made me feel.

[Joli Dy]

Thank you so much. I'm very grateful for your words.

[Re-Pete]

hauntingly and disturbingly telling. you made those walls talk. creepy. i guess the woman with no fingers riding a bike won't be flipping anybody off. not exactly a place i'm in a hurry to see but perhaps out of curiosity. eerily well told. thanks for the nickel tour.

[Joli Dy]

You're very welcome. The history of the place is fascinating and the residents were granted the right to live there until they died. Some chose to. There was a little general store and a post office - all inside.

[Re-Pete]

hmm, very interesting and sad. I feel for those who were there.

[Davidgeo]

Empathy has the potential to be very painful. It hurts very badly to be a caregiver at times.

[Joli Dy]

That's very true. Yet most of us, I hope, are willing to risk it. Shared pain makes for wide horizons.

[Davidgeo]

That style of existence is becoming a lost art. Most people just want to be placated. The movie Idiocricy is playing out in real time as we speak (at least in America at the moment)

[Joli Dy]

While I don't disagree, I see "that style of existence" (what an odd turn choice of phrasing) daily. Do you also believe that if you look for something, you are more likely to find it?

[Davidgeo]

Confirmation bias is real. I don't have to believe in it.