Grass or Memorials

Grass

Carl Sandburg

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.

Shovel them under and let me work -

I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg

And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.

Shovel them under and let me work.

Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:

What place is this?

Where are we now?

I am the grass.

Let me work.

Today I walked past a small pavilion on campus where a young women was reading something. And no one was listening, we were all just walking on past. But I heard some of her somber words. She was listing off names, races and places of lynchings. Individuals killed for various reasons. Often charges of murder. And you know what I thought? You can judge me. Great another memorial for death and evil.

In High School during one of my English classes we read the poem above, and my teacher asked if we should put memorials up for all these places. I echo what I said then. If we look back far enough in time, probably every step we take is on a place where someone (or something) died. Someone cheated, someone lied. Lets not put a sign at every one of those places. I'm not saying that war memorials are bad, and we shouldn't have any, but sometimes, we dwell so much on the negative things in life that we don't let the grass grow. We don't let healing take place.

I mean really. How does it heal anyone to have someone read names to nobody about lynchings 100 years old?