requiem for innocence

Today in Virginia a record was broken.
Not the Olympic athlete kind, or even the pie-eating-at-the-county-fair kind.

This record must be measured on the scale of horrors,
In bodies lying lifeless
names on a list

Today the wind howls and moans outside my window,
nature mourning what man has done

Headlines proclaim "deadliest campus shooting in history"
but headlines tell half-truths,
As if it is already history,
As if the deadliest part was not yet to come

Today I marvel at the mundane,
at the people, dry-eyed, in the grocery store and driving their cars,
I marvel, and yet I am among them, dry-eyed.

Naivete is unpardonable, so I have been told,
but I am naive, I choose to be
the kind of naive that cannot fathom the depth of this darkness
the kind that is still surprised

Today is a sob, holding its breath;
And tomorrow
tomorrow
tomorrow
All our tomorrows must grieve.