26

By

Amina Iro

[U.S.A.]

 

Amina Iro  wrote this poem on the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School

*****

On December 14, 2012, 20-year-old Adam Lanza fatally shot twenty children and six adult staff members in a mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School in the village of Sandy Hook in Newtown, Connecticut.[4][5] Before driving to the school, Lanza had shot and killed his mother Nancy at their Newtown home.[7][9][10] As first responders arrived, he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.

 

For every letter of the Alphabet, there was a dream,
There was a future.
For every letter of the alphabet, there is value,
And for every letter of the Alphabet, there is a name

Children:
A – Charlotte
B – Daniel
C - Olivia
D - Josephine
E - Dylan  
F - Madeleine
G - Catherine  
H - Chase  
I - Jesse  
J - Ana  
K - James  
L - Grace
M - Emilie
N - Jack  
O - Noah  
P - Caroline  
Q - Jessica   
R - Avielle
S - Benjamin
T - Allison

Their educators:
U - Rachel
V - Anne Marie
W - Lauren
X - Mary
Y - Victoria
Z - Dawn

What was once a class roster now reads as an obituary
With every name our hearts gain the weight of hearts no longer beating
We carry them with the care of a mother cradling her child,
And inject a breath of life into them
Like the sight of love injects butterflies into our stomachs

Twenty six lives.
Twenty six lives that went by too quickly because they were passengers on a bullet train that was never meant for them
Twenty six lives stolen, most at an age too young to understand the letters by which they are listed

An age when “L M N O P” is still understood “elemenohpee.”
Too young to formulate words like "weapon" and "massacre", "malice", and "heartlessness."
Twenty six souls pried away from the bodies that held them

Whose hands had no other job than to ensure that the seeds of knowledge made their way into the Earth

 

An abused right to bear arms bloodied bare arms

If we do not learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it

Fighting firearms with firearms is not the answer

How dare we still debate on this matter?

Risk ourselves and our children for the right to carry a gun that does nothing but embody death in a capsule smaller than the finger that is used to pull the trigger

 

Never again

Never again after people were told to close their eyes as they exited the building to avoid being scarred by a sight that should have never come into existence.

Never again after enough tears were shed to end the drought of peace and prosperity in this world.

Never again after the strongest of hearts were tossed, tumbled, broken, shattered, pieces scattered and lost all in less than 24 hours.

Never again after I told my little brother that he would be save going to school on Monday morning

Unsure of whether or not I had lied to him.

 

Newtown, Connecticut we do not weep for you.
We weep WITH you
And as a nation we stand with you.
And on the hardest of days

When the sun’s shining just isn’t enough, we lend ourselves to you.


We give you our hearts for when yours are weak.

Our shoulders to cry on, to take a rest on

We give you our feet to walk with when yours do not have the strength to carry you through the day

And we give you our hands, never to replace the hands that you lost,

But rather because you need all the warmth you can get in this cold world and we need it too

 
Our headlines are changing

Our attention is moving

The Earth is still spinning.

But as the pages of the book on life continue turning

As we write, speak, type, compose

As we BREATHE

We must never forget the names that make up the letters of the alphabet