Poetry

Rob Wilson

By

Don Krieger

“…our dead are different from yours…“

(from “All The Same“)

30 years ago construction halted on I-279.

Down from Penn Brewery and North Catholic,

bones were found where Voegtly Church had stood.

727 dead were sifted from the earth and catalogued

while backhoes, pavers, politicians, and lawyers stood aside.

Just this fall the Standing Rock Sioux

found sacred ground on the Dakota Access pipeline path.

Neither the company nor the court would bend;

the Sioux beloved now lay pulverized

beneath an easement and 30 inch pipe cradled in cement.

Corporations labor with peerless might,

build jets, touch screens, cities.

But unlike us, they spawn by charter, are adult at birth,

are absent face or feeling, yet hungry;

when left unbound, all humanity is their natural prey.

The Voegtly remains were separated for burial and laid with a single marker.

Those present were scientists, reporters,

and Dorothy Davies, baptized at Voegtly Church 80 years before.

No living relative was ever found,

but the Voegtly dead were on protected ground and respected.

The ancient bones at Standing Rock were not,

nor were their living kin.

Don Krieger

I have built satellites, worked in the operating room, been in a cult, …

I earn my living as part of a group which is trying to understand and treat head injury.

In my poetry and short blog pieces, I want to express ideas with unambiguous clarity and intensity.

I willingly sacrifice rhyme and meter, art, cleverness, elegance, and beauty for these.