MAY 2026: Daniel Ross

"The only difference between the beasts and us
is that we bury our dead?"

For May's Maryland Artist of the Month, Artists from Maryland is featuring Daniel Ross! Below, you will find his poem "Human burials blur the lines."

Dr. Daniel W. Ross hails from Baltimore, Maryland, where he developed a love for poetry and creative writing at Gilman School and Goucher College. His poetry has been published by Washington Writers' Publishing House, Mouthful of Salt, Plants & Poetry, Line of Advance, and As You Were: The Military Review.

Human burials blur the lines

between:

hammering nails for 9 hours straight, and
animals that mourn the dead.

revolting against entropy in the ecosystem, versus
natural nutrient cycling.

   The only difference between the beasts and us
   is that we bury our dead?

chemically arresting decay, when
they cannot continue to resemble the living.

ritualizing, washing, and dressing;
weekend at…taboo: to other living creatures.

   But that’s not true—
   depending on what Anthro
   apologist, we ask.

the dead owning legal status and dominion, whether
biologically irrelevant or not.

mausoleums to the worthless, or
space for living species?

   Distraction is an option;
   change the psycho-phys subject.

honor, religion, status, family, nation; beyond
separating corpses from diseases, death, and hardship.

managing our own emotions, or stabilizing survivors,
and Nothing, benefiting the deceased.

   The beasts might argue with
   what we’ve had questions on,
   about the five steps
   taken on those weeds
   popping up in
   sidewalk cracks.

between the absolute insanity of existential anxiety,
or accepting the awareness of decomposition.

   My smeared sneakers ruin
   the only witnesses to the
   9 nails driven high above.

//