The Forgotten People

The Forgotten People

 

The cemetery sat on a hill and dipped into the morning mist

The crosses were all the same with patients numbers to last

Paupers graves every one with not name to show the life down under

The mist rolled up from the bottom to the top to cover

 

Those markers that stood erect left no reason of why

The person there had been placed there because of no family.

Family is a hard word to use in this part of the community

The sick can only be cared for until the care is no longer needed

 

A pauper’s cemetery for the mentally insane and the need to deny

The member of the family that no one will ever claim

What did they do wrong to endure such action of sad reframe?

They turned their heads away to start the action to forget

 

In the nineteen twenties the care for little ones was wonderful

She was three days old when she was admitted

She had Dowel Syndrome and the family couldn’t cope

After three days… the “family couldn’t cope”

 

She died there and on her erect cross her number was painted

She was seven when she went to God

Now sitting on the right hand of Jesus her smile lights up the earth

And she rens as a child should be able to and laughter is now the norm

 

At the age of eighteen he was admitted as a manic-depressant

He had uncontrolled fits and hurt his little brother

He never made it to nineteen the insulin shock did him in

We now know it would not have helped in the first place.

 

The cemetery is over grown now

It is a state land mark that is ignored

The people now gone walk the ground

In wonder of what they did that set them apart

 

Confused spirits of people that men did wrong too

Spirits that now want love as much as then

Gods hand reaches to them with love unquenched

A Grace that only time can heal

 

G.D.Gregory (The Bard) 2007