SURELY

Surely, bullets rend and wreck.
Ripping through reality,
Rendering innocence lost.
They silence playful voices,
Still small, active hands,
Before their young words or work
Can finish growing.
Words and work that might have had healing in them
For this old world.

Bullets tear through a family,
Leave them struggling to breathe.
Grief knocks the wind clean out.
Familiar words like “we” and “us”
Are fractured beyond recognition.
Little things like pajamas and backpacks,
Once common and constant,
Lie about tragically unused,
Becoming heartrending monuments to the innocent.


Surely, we can put a stop to this.
Can we find no way to shelter
These, our little ones, our future?
Those who invest such trust in us,
Who simply are where they are
Because we told them so.
Surely, we can find a way.

And whether or not we can determine or agree upon
Much about the nature
Of the flawed and lost who rain down this terror,
Can we not gather in and heal these hard broken
Before they wander to such realms of disconnect, delusion
That they cease to discern the sacredness of existence?
Surely, we can.

In such a wounded world as this,
So in need of shelter and security,
God protect the playful voices
And the small, active hands.
Watch over the innocent.
Help us.
Surely, we can do better.
Surely, we must.