A Plea for The Children (Uvalde)

©2022 Susan Noyes Anderson

image by Fey Marin on Unsplash

Small white crosses dot green grasses,
children who will play no more.
Bright-eyed boys and lively lasses,
robbed of all life held in store.

Hearts lie broken all around us:
mothers, fathers, siblings, friends.
Horror cuts too deep, surrounds us,
tells us how the story ends.

Now the crushed soul seeks solution
once again, again, again.
Can there be no resolution?
And if yes, then where and when?

How much drowning will we bear
before we stand against the tide?
Our people cry. Our people care.
Our children are not safe. They died.

We did not, do not keep them whole.
We lose…mourn…lose but fail to act.
For whom do grief-wrung school bells toll?
They toll for us, and that’s a fact.
∞§∞

The message of Uvalde rings loud and clear today: We cannot, must not, continue to hold our political differences more dear than the lives of our children. We will never be able to enact protective measures without compromise. There are valid ideas on both sides of this dilemma. Can we open our minds and the minds of our representatives to getting some but not all of what we want and accepting some but not all of what we don’t want? Because if we can’t, every one of us will bear a level of responsibility for the outcome. And the outcome will be not only devastating, but unnecessary. Our children deserve better. I hope and pray we give it to them.

Related Poems:

A Post-Election Valentine A Grieving Mother On the Move I Discarded