Sapere Aude (After Roseburg)

Now Roseburg.
And we again despair;
All point their fingers
And again getting nowhere.
Find the crux of the matter;
The gun is not to blame:
Babe Ruth was the mighty batter—
But it’s not the bat that goes in the Hall of Fame.
‘That place… is strong with the dark side of the Force…
In you must go. ‘
Broken minds untethered
When will we ever know?
The Mind: an ugly, evanescent thing:
Thoughts! Feelings! Emotions! Cognitions!
Better to leave alone;
O, leave me with my superstitions.
Until we get past this stupid fear,
That leads to anger and such undying pain,
To bring mental illness out of the shadows,
It’ll be Columbine, Sandy Hook, Roseburg, again and again and again and…

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Key Number 63/Stars and Bars

The grounds man walked up to the gate
And pulled out his Yale key numbered 63:
This day had been long in coming;
The end of a hard era of taut history.

A lost soul in Charleston
Killed nine in Mother Emanuel.
Whither go our children:
Do you seek Heaven or Hell?

The gate swung open and let in the man
Who reached up for the halyard,
And down furled came the Stars and Bars—
A breeze ripening out of the Southward.

94 thousand died under that proud banner
For their State, their God and sweet country fair—
But fairly beaten, fairly lost
With blasted angels, a long gray line climbed that tall stair.

A lost soul in Charleston
Killed nine in Mother Emanuel.
Whither go our children:
Do they seek Heaven or Hell?

The legislature cast their ballots
On the sure fait accompli
As would’ve been that final warrant
Signed by Abe Lincoln or by Marse Lee

The grounds man folded the crimson rag
Headed for a place of Honoured History;
Now wrongly tainted by hate and sorrow,
The cure a socio-psychological mystery.

A lost soul in Charleston
Killed nine in Mother Emanuel.
Whither go our children:
Do we teach Heaven or Hell?