Unmarked Grave
The colonel raised me to be great.
As tall as was he—a giant of a man.
Handsome and clever,
a winner of confidence,
I was his favorite son.
I played the role, but lost myself
in one who broke my heart by leaving.
Then, as so many others who fled
during those dangerous times,
my best friend of a lifetime went away,
the two of them leaving me with no support.
I fell victim to the flattery of a tyrant
and chose the wrong side.
Then, knowing my end was near,
I refused to run
but met my fate—
A bullet delivered by that Surafel, a childhood friend
who himself was caught by the Derg and brutally killed.
“Hero of the Revolution” my caption read,
yet they buried us both, as so many others,
in an unmarked grave.
My father wept and grew old,
my whole family collapsing in on itself.
By what miracle,
forty years later
in a land 9,000 miles away,
did my former love
hear my whole story
and write these lines?
For NaPoWriMo Day 8, the prompt was to read a few of the poems from Spoon River Anthology, and then write my own poem in the form of a monologue delivered by someone who is dead.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 
A very moving story.
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I actually worked for over a year writing a book about these years in Ethiopia, but finally gave up. Just too too sad. The air of detachment in Spoon River Anthology helped me to adopt that same air of detachment and made it easier to write this. I got so caught up in the Anthology that I read for two hours before finally trying to compose a poem of my own and was surprised to find myself writing about this topic.
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Recording sad events of history is never easy.
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Haven’t seen the anthology mentioned, but I thought this verse sounded pretty realistic.
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This was so touching Judy.
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Thanks, Smitha. I was trying to use the detached tone of the original.
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The ending hit hard.
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I remember in high school some of the students read Spoon River Anthology, but it was never assigned to my class; I was familiar with the name, but not the book itself.
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I think I confused it with Winesburg, Ohio. So strange. I’m sure I had read some of it… how could I have not done so? But probably just excerpts.
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This was such an experience to read!
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Thanks, Rahul.
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