Columbine, Texas

How do we grieve?
I remember standing over the dead of Columbine
Children just as I was, who thought themselves adult.
Latchkey kids of the 1990’s
Whose parents lived in other rooms and other hours,
Not on others phones and customized news feeds.

How do we grieve?
Some will go to Facebook, they can’t use Twitter
for the list, not of the names,
but merely the places is far, far too long.
Too long this nation, founded on the freedom of the gun,
Has watered it’s trees with the blood of the Fourth Amendment.
It takes time to grieve the leaving of Spirit
Yet it’s passing is in an instant.

How do we grieve?
It seems a white hot anger,
A coal with no shuttle,
No place for holy fire.
The world burns, the waters rise
To an arpeggio of fiddle string
The wave breaks over us.

We cry.
We call our representatives, hoping to dislodge the check from the the NRA
From their shoulder holsters.
We hug our sixth-graders’ shoulders tight, adjusting the velcro straps,
Of their flax jacket
The world burns, the waters rise
A swan song, or phoenix cry?
You decide.