Simply Six Minutes

School Shooting

This is no trick or treat

that is not what’s moving these small feet,

it’s grief, it’s thinking hard

on all of the friends they’ve lost in the schoolyard.

The faces are solemn,

their hearts cry out.

They cannot even imagine what this is all about.

Even the parents look subdued

gathering, in protests they never act rude,

the sidewalk regulars stay out-of-the-way

because maybe they didn’t have a child there that day.

A shock to these parents and children alike.

They do not realize the government’s spite.

To make new laws that prevent guns

In the presence of all of these little ones,

we plead, we vote, we protest and march

but all of this doesn’t move the oligarch

he cares not what happens in small towns or schools

While he secretly makes up new laws and rules.

***