At the Gravesite of the Haymarket Martyrs

It's like a scene out of the French Revolution,
A bit unsettling to encounter in Chicago.
Resolute Lady Justice is striding forward,
Drawing her sword to protect the fallen worker
That she's crowned with a wreath of laurel;
A victim of the Pinkertons perhaps
Or of cops paid to intimidate the strikers, or
Of assassins hired by McCormick or Pullman.
Robber barons will pay the minions of the State
To serve them or to overlook their crimes.
Justice has an impossible task ahead of her.
There are so many workers for an icon to protect
That too many people only pay lip service to.

The monument at Forest Home Cemetery
Is rarely visited anymore.
A few old Wobblies come to doff their hats,
Recalling the days they sang "The Internationale,"
When they actually believed that workers could unite,
Triumph, and receive the fruits of their labor.
A few earnest anarchists, idealists and romantics
Who haven't yet had their dreams of a better world
Tasered, maced, smashed by a cop's nightstick
Or compressed into "Free Speech Zones,"
Make their pilgrimage to pay homage,
Not only to the five Haymarket Martyrs
Who were innocent of the crimes they died for,
But to all the labor reformers and "communists"
Who've chosen to be buried near the monument.

Emma Goldman,  Lucy Parsons, Ben Rietman,
Joe Hill, Big Bill Heywood, Voltairine de Cleyre...

Sadly the visitors are far too few
To validate August Spies' prophetic words,
Uttered in a muffled voice from beneath
The stifling hood of black canvas
That the hangman had pulled over his head.

   "The time will come when our silence
     will be more powerful than the voices
      you are throttling today."

The silence of this gathering of the dead
Is broken only by the twittering of birds
And the distant hum of freeway traffic
The labor martyrs who were wrongly condemned
For their beliefs rather than their guilt;
Who gave their lives in the struggle
To win us an eight hour day,
More time to spend with our families,
Some respite from a life of wage slavery,

Rest almost forgotten.

Corporate America has the upper hand again.
There will be new martyrs.

"They who do not study history
  Are condemned to repeat it."






                                                                             Rich Hanson