Babies and Bullets

Again, I am motivated to write from a place of grief.  Disbelief.  A not again, never again, REALLY AGAIN? type of sadness.  I off-handedly joke that poetry is cheaper than therapy, but I am profoundly affected by violence, once again.  And I am not sure I can work through my feelings with prosaic psychology this time.

This past Tuesday, I was supposed to meet my middle daughter at her place of work after I finished up leading a poetry workshop.  But the neighborhood was cordoned off and good citizens were directed not to enter the area.  Another school shooting.  Close to home.  Was I terrified that my daughter was just a few blocks from a shooting?  Yes.  Was I pissed that it was happening again?  Yes.  Did I feel helpless?  Yes.  Later this feelings would amplify as we all learned details and I discovered that I had some personal connections to parents of students.  A fellow NIA practitioner.  One of my favorite yoga teachers.

My daughter came home, shaken and also angry.  She told me her step mom had called her at work to let her know the latest news.  I wasn't surprised as her dad's wife used to live in this area.  Then my daughter told me that her dad had called her when a different shooting had happened by our house.  And I had to work through the process of figuring out which house?  Which shooting?  The Planned Parenthood shooting just miles from our home in Colorado Springs?  The murder of Douglas County Deputy Zach Parish*, just blocks from the apartment we rent in the suburbs south of Denver?

We lived a mere eight miles from Columbine on that fateful day.  I remember wondering why I moved back to Colorado.  And now I wonder if my friends who have kids at STEM wonder why they moved here from Virginia and Wisconsin. Of course geography offers no immunity for school shootings and gun violence in general.  It is an epidemic.  Widespread panic is the new norm.

I wrote this poem in the wake of Parkland.  I marched in a protest following what was then the latest school shooting.  More school-based murders have happened since then, and I fear we have not seen the last.  Listen to the kids who exited STEM, seemingly unscathed, but forever harmed.  They are not cavalier.  They have a reality that I cannot comprehend.  They live in this fear and this culture.  I decided a long time ago not to be the adult who judges their feelings, edits their speech, or tells them how to act.

All I can do is write.  Spit my feelings out on paper and hope it provides relief or insight for whoever may read my words.  I don't expect every reader to nod and agree with every word I say.  But I do ask this; if you disagree - write your own words.  I'm in no mood to engage or argue.

Have a violence-free day.

Jane

Time to Write

* Four other deputies were also injured

The New Annihilator

by Jane Hillson Aiello - February 2018

The current day obliteration will not be
By troops in heavy boots and woolen coats
Arms outstretched in a superior salute

This modern-day madman has an
AR-15 as his arm extension
His uniform is blue jeans and a backpack
A trench coat, blank eyes
His artillery? Video games and easy ammo

Soon, there will be no more Holocaust survivors
Schoolchildren today are the last generation
To hear a real person
With a sad, guttural voice speak the truth

Telling us never, never again
One day any shard of light 
Ashen afterglow of extermination
Will be forever dimmed

Citizens stood and saluted
An evil man with no heart
Neighbors clucked their tongues
Disregarded the glaring truth

Today’s society has a different breed of survivor
Years from now a grandmother will hold a toddler
In the warmth of her bosom and tell
Of the time of terror

Innocent children being murdered in kindergarten
Teenagers gunned down in the halls of high school
That practicing your faith was dangerous
Synagogues were targets, unsafe
Movie theaters provided real life
Bolt-action, dive under your seat experiences

Our blind-eye is vapid
Thoughts and prayers
Hollow sentiments, candlelight vigils
Fallow filibusters

We must pray these current survivors of today’s reign of terror
Perpetuated by the new regime of a corrupt congress
Puppeteered by the NRA
Will find the strength to procreate

Overcome this satanic inhumanity
That values bullets over babies