Vigil – A Poem of American Crisis

By Sharee Anne Gorman

This poem was written after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. I felt something needed to be said about the depths to which our culture has devolved for want of a meaningful existence. I was much uplifted after receiving some very encouraging feed-back from Professor Noam Chomsky on this poem, so I decided to animate it and share it as a multimedia video.

rows of cameras
roll in silent running

recording for posterity
the scattered points of light
clustering steadily into pools
of brightly-lit umbrellas

unintended Chinese lanterns
gathered in grief

feeling very much the intruders
news crews bear witness to
a community in shock

humbled and shaken
they shiver at the sight of
orphaned parents protecting
the fragile flames of their
dwindling, yet somehow eternal,
remembrance candles

sodden handkerchiefs
are folded and refolded
by owners searching desperately
for an unused corner to dry
chapped and moistened cheeks

sleeves serve almost as well
for the less prepared

while those who stand
stone-faced and stubborn
leave tears to find
their own course

numbly offering up body salts
to the soggy ground beneath
unsteady feet

we’ve stopped asking “why”
“why” has lost all meaning

but the words “enough”
and “no more”
are quickly gaining ground

we don’t care anymore
if it’s the guns,
the video games,
the horror movies
or the meds

those are just the symptoms of
an over-sold
and misspent culture

…we just want it to stop…

to understand the
reflection in this mirror
of our collective conscience

…the mirror to our madness…

a reflection that has become

…a vigil…
in its own right

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