Guns

“Bang, bang. You’re dead,” we yelled,

Whooping and hollering, scampering

Among the trees, like cowboys on TV.

Shot dead we rolled in fallen leaves,

Arms and legs flopping, then bounced

Up to chase and shoot again and again

Till nightfall came, streetlights blinked,

And our mothers called us home.

Half a century now passed and kids

No longer play cowboys in the woods.

Dead children no longer rise up again

In classrooms, churches, and theaters,

Where real bullets fly all too often

And innocent blood stains the floor.

Toys no longer, guns are the death

Of culture, the demise of civility,

As love of power and of hate trump

Sense, and love of money, money

Negates our duty to the living

And the dead, and the dead to be.

There will be more death. We know.

We could change this future if—

If we had the will to stop pretending

Guns spell freedom with lethal rounds.

Guns write in death, and these cowboys

Cannot bounce up to yell “Bang, bang”

And hear their mothers call them in.

Guns send them home alone, forever.

I wrote this poem in response to the latest mass shooting, which occurred in Oregon. In the previous post I discussed our American obsession with guns and the gun violence that comes from our collective inability to address resulting death and injury not as a threat to a supposed constitutional right but as a threat to the common good that is foundational in our democracy. Sensible gun laws, which are not universal in the United States but could, and should, be, are merely an essential starting point. However, such laws would lay a foundation for changing our pervasive gun culture and making our nation safer for all.