Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Poem: Let Us Explain How This Happened In Your School

(The poem and collage, below, and preamble, are by Cynthia Jacobi, a volunteer for Ceasefire Oregon)


Preamble: 
After Newtown, people asked what could you say to those parents who lost children?  
I ask what could we say to the children who we failed to 
Protect?  What could we possibly give as explanation?  

(Collage by Cynthia Jacobi)


Let Us Explain How This Happened In Your School    
by Cynthia Jacobi 


It happened because the mother was odd
     and the boy was weird   
because neighbors did not bake cookies to greet them
     blank curtains were drawn and lawns were wide

Because the mother could no longer sing the boy to sleep
because the mother didn’t lock the safe or hide the key
because the other kids pushed him aside

It happened because the mother took the boy to practice
because the mother took the boy Christmas shopping
because America sells mega-magazines everywhere
     and Hollywood sells violence

It happened because of Gun Luv
because we are the land of the brave and the free
     and cowboys and Bonnie and Clyde
because bullets open doors to entry

Because the boy didn’t need to reload much
It happened because the NRA
     loudspeakers spread dollars and fear
because there was no good guy with a gun
    to shoot the bad guy with a gun

It happened because we fail to be horrified for long
because hunters of quail and rabbit are silent

Because reasonable people find no reason to be so

It happened because we have forgotten the poems
     we once knew by heart


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