The afternoon is warm and breezy.Fallen leaves skip stiffly across the driveway
as I read a little Billy Collins on the bench
we put together weeks ago, the boys and I.
A car alarm cries sadly in the distance
as if no one with a clicker has the energy
to turn it off, or maybe they're asleep
or glued to Channel 5 for updates down in Broward.
On Facebook everyone is angry,
posting memes, assigning blame,
frustrated by the stubborn shining of the sun
upon a day with so much sorrow.
Unanswered questions for the boy, for politicians,
for the culture we've allowed in which
the answer is in pulling out a gun, no longer able
to accept the fact that others are not hurting
like we hurt inside and so we try to change
the ratio, increase the pain around us so
it doesn't feel as though we bear more than our
share. We don't all pull a trigger, though.
Sometimes we use our words. Sometimes we use
our silence, or a finger pointed at The Ones
we want to blame. I doubt that any of it matters,
not today at least, to anyone who grieves a loss
for real, not just collective grief, that shroud we
put on when it happened, or because it happened
in our state, or in America. I mean the grief of
families at the morgue or picking up the backpacks
left behind, the car keys from the pockets, or the iPhones
with a final text still frozen on the screen, the
horror they endure today while we sit on our benches
reading poetry, or find some other way to deal
with the frustration that there must be Something Done,
some answers seeming obvious, some not so clear.
But far above, the sky persists in being blue;
the fragrance of the day remains unfortunately sweet.
(c) Ellen Gillette, 2018
On February 14, 2018, a young man walked onto the campus of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida and killed (as of today) 17 people, and stirring up within all of us deep emotion. Writing helps me deal with things.
