Columbine

I was going home for a visit when the events of April 20, 1999 unfolded in a high school in Colorado. I first saw uncertain announcements in the airport terminal, as I was waiting to board my plane. Once I arrived home, and things became clearer, reactions spread, and the beginning of this poem was born. Unusually, it took the entire week and then some, after I'd gone home again to my TVless house in Washington, for it to find completion. Some things just hit you, and need to be protested. My protestation of the heart has remained unseen by everyone but my mother for over three years. This is, in part, due to the reaction of a friend I had approached a few months after the terrible event. I asked him, "You remember Columbine?" as a way to tentatively share this poem, which carried so much of my feelings. The reaction was along the lines of "Oh god, not that again. I've heard it on the radio, on the TV, in the paper, everywhere. I'm sick of it." Needless to say, I did not tell him about or show him the poem. Maybe, living in a house by myself, not having a TV, and listening to music only stations on the radio... maybe it let me contemplate things. I was isolated from the bulk of the media frenzy I'd only experienced the beginnings of while at my parents'. I had the quiet, and solitude, to reflect on the facts, watch all that was going on, and draw my own conclusions. Maybe it just sheltered me from the bombardment everyone else suffered. Either way, I find it time to put this out, in my own, seldom-visited corner of cyberspace. Some things cannot be let pass without remark, some things cannot be forgotten in the rush of tragedy, and some protests cannot be kept silent forever. Dedicated to those who lost life, loved ones, and security, as well as those whose freedoms were trod on in the aftermath.

Columbine

Going home.
Airport television.
Details sketchy,
Violence done.
Faint tinge of young horror.

Day is fading,
Evening among family.
Voices raised in passing question,
Unsure speculation.
Stirring of slight concern.

Days going by fast,
And details fleshing out.
Stories combining into wholes,
Jagged in their pointlessness.
Late night news begins the weaving.

Sitting down to listen,
Absorbing the terrible truths,
Watching people's lives fraying.
The angry shout of protest
Pushes hard against my closing throat.

The mosaic of the outrage
Starts being broken into seperate tiles.
Individual tales of fear and sorrow.
Tears burn my own eyes.
Remote as I am, my heart rebels.

And then come the questions.
The searching for answers and blame.
Recalling past violence and small ghosts.
Pointing fingers at games, at movies,
This music, that lifestyle, those groups.

The backlash hits hard.
No one must ever be so different again,
Else we invite more sorrow.
Society must gather in the errant ones,
All must have a place with us.

The stampede gains ground on panicked fear,
And the voices are drowned in the multitude.
We are people, we are ourselves.
We'd never do this, we hold life too.
But our place is outside and we are happy.

The voices of 'experts' rise in volume,
And the picture begins to blur together
Becoming one haze of imprinted wrong.
The focus is lost as the wider view crushes.
And there is no justice for the lost.

Copycat threats, doppleganger violence,
Hue and cry among the schools.
Are you truly so low, so blind, so stupid,
To hold this up as your shining example?
Base, crude, inhuman callousness!

I rail against my own fury at these,
Who would make a cliche of events
Too terrible to play at. But enough.
Before I succumb to the weight of the wider view.

We should remember.
The threads of this tapestry.
The people. The lives.
The families.
And the names.

Cassie. Steven. Corey.
Kelly. Matthew. Daniel.
Kyle. Rachel. Isaiah.
John. Danny. Lauren.
Dave.