Resting in Peace (by Douglas O. Linder, 2021)

There is wisdom in letting bygones be bygones,

and the same could be said for letting the dead be dead,

but Pope Steven the Sixth would have none of this advice,

and put his dead predecessor on trial.

Pope Formosus had been rottting peacefully

in a vault at St. Peters for about eight months,

When Stephen ordered him removed and

And propped on a throne in a Roman basilica.

Feeling burned over the prior pope’s handling

of some ninth-century ecclesiastical obsession, Stephen

appointed himself prosecutor and demanded answers to tough questions,

but the dead pope exercised his right to remain silent.

When the time came for a verdict, the jury of cardinals

knew who buttered their bread and convicted poor Formosus,

and the defendant soon found himself butchered

and tossed into the Tiber River.

Why am I telling you all this?  After all, 897 was long ago.

Not much can be done about this injustice now,

even if Pope Stephen’s being strangled in a dungeon

wasn’t payback enough for his abuse of judicial process.

But if one dead person can be put on trial, so can another.

The next one could be you or me. Who wants their repose interrupted

by an ungrateful heir, a tormenting spouse, or a local library finally

onto you and that book you borrowed in 1979 and failed to return?

Some might say “It can’t happen here.” 

There were those who said that before the 2016 election,

and we all know what happened then.

So let the record be clear: When you’re dead, you’re dead.