G. L. Morrison

I know.  But I do not approve.  And I am not resigned.

–Edna St. Vincent Millay

I was struck by the recent* school shooting to create an archive of occasional poems because the occasion of unfathomable collective grief is as predictable an event these days as any national holiday. I wanted to write poetry about the portions of the event that stuck with me. The shards that glitter in my mind’s eye like a burst Christmas bulb: sharp, terrible but beautiful and ultimately useless. But no poetry came to me. Or no me came to it. The hows of our nonarrival are irrelevant.

*I say “recent” because latest can never be accurate. Keeping up with school shootings requires an IV feed of local and national news.

Failing as a poet, I dipped into my skills as an editor and began piecing together “poems of healing” from various sources and eras.

https://glmorrison.com/poems-of-healing/index-for-poems-of-healing/

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave

Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;

Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.

I know.  But I do not approve.  And I am not resigned.

–Edna St. Vincent Millay