The following is a community-created poem started on my Facebook page regarding the most recent massacre of innocent children at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. The contributors are from all over the country, one from London. We hope you will share it.
We are writers, poets, teachers, mothers, fathers.
The invitation from Linda Drattell’s Facebook post:
The news has been devastating. How do we cope with mass shootings? Our community writing a poem together, where each of us adds a line, might be helpful. It doesn’t solve anything, just helps us cope. Maybe someone in power will eventually read it and be moved by it.
Flower Heads Torn
Flower heads torn, young leaves shorn
Blood on the floor, shock at the door
Only thing left is families who mourn
While we cling to hope that things will change
The madness goes on and on out of rage
Lives stolen, hearts broken
Rage hollered, grief unspoken
Thoughts and prayers looked upon as tokens
Guns win, no change through the commotion
Hearts bleeding, children weeping, life forever changed
Mental health now the sole blame
Political invasion, lost equation
smoke screen evasion as guns reign
Children’s fears in the classroom
Haunt me as guns destroy freedom
So horribly unnecessary
Police simply emissaries
Of bad news
What’s America coming to?
Could be your child, your neighbor’s, your niece
With gun laws let’s end the unbelievable grief
Action, not thoughts and prayers, brings permanent relief
Need policy change to end gun violence
Not silence, not silence
Hearts are shattered and families mourn
Laid to rest, so recently born
This community poem was created from submissions by: Linda Drattell, Rachel Zemach, Evelyn Marie Ruhlman, Edgar Palmer, Lisa Harbour, Julie Rems Smario, John Garvey, Cynthia Moynihan, Eunhee Soh, Helen Schreibman-Smith, Marilyn Dykstra, Marsha Kopp, and Linda Moore Marple.
Literary Writer 