Progress
By Craig Kirchner
I went to a small Lutheran church
next to an old black cemetery.
I was nine, assumed that meant only
blacks were buried there.
I had never seen anyone there, it was big,
full and old, old, bordered on three sides
by the yards of row houses in a white neighborhood
and Mount of Olives Church.
There was a big announcement, Two Guys discount
department store opening on Belair Road.
“But it’s a cemetery,” I was talking to the pastor’s son.
“Yes, but it’s old, it’s black, it’s become an eyesore,
they say it’s a health hazard.” He was a teen,
went to high school, read newspapers,
said his father was sent here by God
from North Carolina. He lived down the street.
Thinking you weren’t supposed to disturb the dead,
I looked it up. Laurel Cemetery was established
in 1852 as the first non-denominational
African American cemetery in Baltimore.
Interred for the rest of days, was their Motto.
Blacks who fought in the civil war were buried there,
as were about five thousand others.
Frederick Douglas spoke there.
I inquired of the minister’s son, sent by God,
“What will they do with all these bodies?’
“I’m sure they’ll bulldoze them under, it’s old, black.
The neighbors dump trash there, complain it’s dangerous,
for the kids. They’ll need the whole area,
the store is huge and will need plenty of parking.”
I stopped asking questions. When I was twelve and free
to stand up to my mother, I stopped going to church.
They relocated three hundred graves, bulldozed the rest.
I ended up working in the shoe department.
Craig Kirchner is retired and living in Jacksonville, because that’s where his granddaughters are. He loves the aesthetics of writing, has a book of poetry, Roomful of Navels and has been nominated three times for Pushcart. He was recently published in Chiron Review, Main Street Rag, The Wise Owl, Breathe, The Wilderness House and dozens of others. He houses 500 books in his office and about 400 poems on a laptop, these words help keep him straight.