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SACCO & VANZETTI: MURDERED AUG. 23, 1927

by Eric T. Racher on August 20, 2007

Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were put to death 80 years ago on August 23, 1927, after a notoriously prejudiced and unfair trial. Here is a poem of mine that speaks about the two men and the times. It was originally published in Pemmican.

SONNET FOR SACCO AND VANZETTI

Justice avenge her dead, and reason flow
into a world where lies and power reign.
We never shall forget: the dry winds blow
across the fading embers of my brain.
It must have been the wind that brought to mind
your faces, as history’s dark wings unfurl,
brood over us, and make us pregnant. We find
your names, our selves, are borne upon its whirl.
In Washington D.C., the cherry trees
have finished blossoming. White monuments
are softened by the scent of rotting blooms.
This wounded orb, scraped raw, can barely see
these petals rend & flutter as they’re spent:
the earth’s back breaks beneath their soft perfume.

“Well, I have already say that I not only am not guilty of these two crimes, but I never committed a crime in my life,--I have never stolen and I have never killed and I have never spilt blood, and I have fought against crime, and I have fought and I have sacrificed myself even to eliminate the crimes that the law and the church legitimate and sanctify.
This is what I say: I would not wish to a dog or to a snake, to the most low and misfortunate creature of the earth--I would not wish to any of them what I have had to suffer for things that I am not guilty of. I am suffering because I am a radical and indeed I am a radical; I have suffered because I was an Italian, and indeed I am an Italian; I have suffered more for my family and for my beloved than for myself; but I am so convinced to be right that you can only kill me once but if you could execute me two times, and if I could be reborn two other times, I would live again to do what I have done already.
I have finished. Thank you.”

-Bartolomeo Vanzetti

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