You have most likely already witnessed high school students from Florida exhort local and national leaders to enact common sense gun laws. Whatever your opinion is regarding the matter, we all want safe schools and communities. We need more than words of praise or condolence. For this moment in time, change and action are required. Now more than ever, we should be asking “why?” It’s time.
HOW MANY?
The chambers were all frozen
Human glaciers sat galore
Decades mired in inches
When we needed so much more
Children in the hallways
A barrel lurking by
Scenes witnessed countless times
How many have to die?
Bullets as donations
Money changing hands
Lawmakers playing silly games
With the laws of the land
Complicit in inaction
Prompting teachers to wear guns
All the while parents grieve
For daughters and lost sons
Tears today are worthy
Yet tomorrow calls for more
Time has come for reflecting
On who’s minding our nation’s store
Stand up and be counted
And ask each other why
These tragedies need to happen
How many have to die?
Each generation must create its own sense of spirit and legacy. Mine (the Baby Boomers) was created through Vietnam, Civil Rights, Women’s issues, The Cold War and the Space Race. The children of today are being impacted by a series of events that includes the dark cloud of gun violence. We can help by guiding. We can help by listening. We can help by allowing them to create their own zeitgeist. There will be growing pains–there always are. That’s Democracy. That’s the reason for hope. It’s time we listen to the shoes of our children who are inexorably marching to a cadence of change. This poetry in motion strikes at the heart of us all as it fuels another generation to take action. See you soon.
Robert Houghtaling is the director of the East Greenwich Drug Program and a longtime contributor to these pages.
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