Remembering the Lost

By Peter Bowden

In the far corner of the old cemetery, where the polished stones gave way to weathered markers and then to none at all, the land sloped gently toward the river. That’s where the pauper’s field lay, unmarked but not unloved. No names, no dates, just earth and memory. But every spring, as if Heaven refused to forget what man had, wildflowers erupted in bloom. Coreopsis, Queen Anne’s lace, goldenrod. They shimmered in the breeze, spilling joy across the forgotten like laughter returned to lips long stilled.

Caretakers said nothing. They let the field be. Even when the rest of the grounds were trimmed and prim, the pauper’s patch stayed unruly and radiant. Children on school tours would ask why that part looked different, and the docent might say, “That’s where the poor are buried.” But the wildflowers whispered otherwise. They seemed to say, Here lie stories, too. Here lies a father, a sister, a soul who sang once.

And so the field became a kind of chapel. Not with pews or altars, but with petals and breeze and sunlight bending through broken clouds. It was not grand. It was not solemn. It was sacred in a quiet way, the way a soft hymn finds its way into a cracked heart. And each year, when the flowers came again, it was as if the forgotten dead rose just slightly, not to haunt, but to smile.

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