To the editor:

I taught English for 43 years. I don’t like all poetry, but I love some poems. “The Hangman” by Maurice Ogden is one.

Into our town the Hangman came

Smelling of gold and blood and flame-

And he paced our bricks with a diffident air

And built his frame on the courthouse square.

“Due process” is an important part of our democracy. It means that everybody gets a chance to present his/her side of the story. The individual won’t just disappear, never to be seen or heard again.

And innocent though we were, with dread

We passed those eyes of buckshot lead;

Till one cried: “Hangman, who is he

For whom you raise the gallows-tree?”

America is a land of different cultures. We don’t all look alike. We don’t all think alike. America has worked for 250years because we give others space.

And he stepped down, and laid his hand

On a man who came from another land.

And we breathed again, for another’s grief

At the Hangman’s hand was our relief.

The problem with our American system is we find it easy to worry about our individual problems and ignore the plight of others.

The fourth man’s dark, accusing song

Had scratched out comfort hard and long;

And “What concern,” he gave us back,

“Have you for the doomed-the doomed and black?”

But if we don’t object when others experience poor treatment, who will object when the system isolates us?

For who has served me more faithfully

Than you with your coward’s hope?” said he,

“And where are the others that might have stood

Side by your side in the common good?

Who cares if someone we don’t know ends up a brutal prison El Salvador?

Beneath the beam that blocked the sky,

None had stood so alone as l-

And the Hangman strapped me, and no voice there

Cried “Stay!” for me in the empty square.

We must stand shoulder to shoulder to defend our common rights.

Lowell Zellmann

New Ulm