December 14, 2012

 

Twenty-six people
Six adults and twenty children
Learned lessons
Made to prepare them
Ways to get along
Draw pictures
Sings songs
Hold hands
Laugh and smile
Share meals together
Play games when they get home
And light candles to celebrate a birthday

Adam lived among them
The child that baffled the adults
Except mother
She loved him
Everything she could
Do to help him
Yet the mystery
Kept pursuing him
Darkness followed
No flame could extinguish
Mother’s wisdom prevailed
Handing him the gun to focus his mind

December 14, 2012
School was on
So was Adam
His gift was ready
He gave a sample
No mother ever wanted
Taking from her
The very gift she gave to him
He made good use of his gift
But it wasn’t enough to answer
The question all his teachers and friends
Lost so far away even the doctors could not find it

He came to Sandy Hook
Armed with metal jacket anger
Grown over time
Grouped inside the magazine
He aim all of it
Inside the little school
He knew all the children
Attended every lesson he missed
They absorbed the ones
Adam learned and dictated
He made sure each one would not miss
They found their mark and spelled their end

Newtown discovered
Unwelcome fame
The police arrived too late
Adam was ready
He left with a bullet
There would be no goodbye
The parents would come
Not to pick up kids from school
Just to identify the little lives
Among the teachers and helpers
The lights that burned were sirens
Signposts of the tragedy that was done and gone

Twenty-six people
Names surrounded in flowers
Horrible lessons
No one should ever teach
No more hugs
No more pictures
No more songs
No holding hands
Just immeasurable tears
We all share together
Every time the gun is too easy
Found to blow out candles and take away birthdays.

Copyright © 2015 Charles Edward York
No part of this poem may be used or reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any way or form or by any means electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise without the written permission of the author.*