TWENTY FIRST GRADERS
AND THEIR TEACHERS
James M. Truxell
March 28, 2013
Fifty seven:
The percentage on that crisp
Mid-December morn who wanted
Laws that would contain , or
Warn
Of the deranged who,
Tighter torquing their fantasies,
Empty capacious magazines
Into twenty first graders and
Their teachers.
Forty seven:
The percentage now, three months on,
Still wanting laws to contain --
But, please,
Let us refrain
From one that that goes against the grain
By banning that so coveted
By sportsmen, or those
Deranged who seek
The death of twenty first graders and
Their teachers.
Thirty eight:
Perhaps the number who
Little or nothing did, but
Surely heard or
Spied
The assault on Kitty Genovese . . .
Raped while she
Died.
Perhaps they cried . . . or at least
The next day reading of it
Sighed,
"So what ya gonna do?"
But that was way back in 1964,
Forty eight years before
The death of twenty first graders and
Their teachers.
And nine months hence . . .
When we mark the passage of a year?
Will we cluck our tongues and
Summon up again
A tear?
After all, what can you do?
Surely others have a bigger
Megaphone than me or you
To intervene, to call a cop, to
Stop
The deranged slaughter of a
Kitty Genovese, or
Prevent the deaths . . .
each one an Innocent . . . of
Twenty first graders and
Their teachers.
Thirty five:
Not many miles this
Familial, tiny space between
New Canaan and Newtown . . .
Each named for a hope
Persistent:
"Dawn shall conquer night"
Insistent
Dream in this New World.
Please, traveler, erase your
Smiles
As you make your way
Along those mournful miles
Connecting the graves of Kitty Genovese,
Twenty first graders
And their teachers.
How can we love them?
We cannot count the ways.
Helplessly, we watch and hold our breath.
After all, what can we do?
Evil is eternal.
Can't root it out.
Our voices are too weak.
Surely someone else will
Speak a word or
Pass a law prohibiting.
That's their job, after all.
They're the government,
Are they not?
Fifty seven percent:
Growing with every
Passing month . . .
Filing taxes, planning
Spring breaks,
Electing popes.
But in this
Broken spring
No taxes will be spent,
Nor papal words decree
An end to that so
Easily available: the means to mount a
Spree so very, very easily
Slaughtering once again the innocents.
Life will go on.
It has to.
We can't just dwell in the past.
So, please . . .
Do not think that we are, thus, deranged, for
We are the United States:
An exceptional nation, indispensable.
Besides, as a great spiritual leader once said,
We've got to
"Leave the dead to bury their dead."
Twenty first graders
And their teachers.
