Grieving with Orlando

A weary calm settles this week on Orlando

As loved ones filled with sadness do their best

To grapple with their state of numb perplexion

As shooting victims are being laid to rest.

 

Funeral parlors schedule visitations

Of those whose lives so abruptly ended.

Families and friends unite in grief,

Their lives temporarily suspended.

 

A church bell tolls forty-nine times

As mourners fill the city with candlelight.

Some of the injured who manage to be present

Are scarred by memories of the dreadful night.

 

A makeshift memorial of cards, flowers, wreaths,

And flags honors those who lost their lives.

Despite the pain and anguish of the mourners,

A clear, powerful sense of love survives.

 

Some services will be held in tandem

For loving couples who together died.

Other services will be held in private

By grieving families who are horrified

 

That members of the Westboro Baptist Church--

That vicious, fiendish, ruthless congregation

Of heartless hatemongers--might appear

To inflict cruel pain and degradation.

 

Sometimes hiding behind the mask of religion

Hatred manifests itself until

Believers are moved to action, mistakenly

Thinking that they're carrying out God's will.

 

As we mourn, we pause to contemplate

The President's words so kind and aptly spoken

When he met with the victims' grieving families

And told them that our hearts, too, are broken.

 

Totally beyond our understanding

Is the depth of other people's sorrow.

May the love that they receive today

Help to mitigate their pain tomorrow.

 

(6-18-16)