Buried on this Island in a tiny unmarked plot,
You would have been my son or daughter
but she decided to abort.
It would be nice to have been consulted,
But that’s a right men haven’t got.
You might have been a beauty
as your sister is today.
Or You might have been a scholar
if not commingled with this clay.
There is no stone where I can grieve;
No plot to kneel and pray.
Just this burial ground of paupers
I am visiting today.
It is my fault as much as hers
I do not seek to blame.
If only I could have held you once
or given you a name.
The winter chill cuts to my core.
I feel a sense of sin.
I’m reminded the saddest words of all
Are these:“what might have been”
Mar 13, 2018
Mar 13, 2018 at 7:37 PM UTC
Buried on this Island in a tiny unmarked plot,
You would have been my son or daughter
but she decided to abort.
It would be nice to have been consulted,
But that’s a right men haven’t got.
You might have been a beauty
as your sister is today.
Or You might have been a scholar
if not commingled with this clay.
There is no stone where I can grieve;
No plot to kneel and pray.
Just this burial ground of paupers
I am visiting today.
It is my fault as much as hers
I do not seek to blame.
If only I could have held you once
or given you a name.
The winter chill cuts to my core.
I feel a sense of sin.
I’m reminded the saddest words of all
Are these:“what might have been”
A meditation by a man visiting Hart Island's potter's field about his unborn child. The death of one is a tragedy. The deaths of sixty million is a statistic. The final lines are intended to echo a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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