Columbine

If we could have remained as lighthearted
As I did that day---
In my classroom I turned Columbine into a comedy.
For, I knew it was just human nature...
I knew that it was not so serious.

Yet, the news pushed the story
Traumatizing everyone in the nation.
Like they did with 9/11
Like they did with Covid...

School shootings were not so serious to me.
Neither are serial killings.
Neither are rapes, or robberies
Or any of the other random acts of violence.

Humanity errs, and it is true that
Men have done cruel things from the beginning.
Would I be afraid of Turks ramming babies with bayonets
If I lived in England? 
On the frontiers of any society,
There is mischief.
In schools, there is mischief,.

The whole of it is quite simple, really.
If we had a whole catalog of the sins
Committed by man on his brother
We'd have a list of evil that would be inexhaustible.

Therefore, evil happens in this world.
It is as true to human nature as good is.
There have always been evils;
Spreading the news of it does not fix the problem.
It only spreads the vanity of fear in wavering hearts.

"I lost my teesh," I said,
Pretending to be an old man.
The old man was shot;
The only one old enough to remember.
So with him, it seemed humor died
And America began the path to becoming afraid.

For, didn't even Jesus remark on the tower falling
Or Herod mingling the blood of victims with the sacrifice?
His words are not to let yourselves be shocked by it
And not to let it rule over your joy.