We will grow tired of raising the flag
to half-mast every morning at the post
office, the elementary and high school,
the courthouse, the fire station. Even at
our churches, outnumbering the gas stations in town.
Your neighbors will lose track of national
tragedies as the news reports the dead like
football scores on the bottom crawl of the
television screen.
Pastors, guns at their hip, wonder why the
congregation wears black on Sunday and
politicians ask Jesus where the youth vote went.
Teachers, once worried of overcrowded classes,
now count the empty desks, school halls
still as mausoleums.
Days we were told never to forget,
now too many to remember.
Evening Panoply 