We keep learning new names:
Topp’s, Parkland, Pulse, Uvalde.
We keep lighting candles, leaving
teddy bears at chain-link shrines,
offering prayers and tears,
anger and anguish.

Nothing ever changes.

t’s not the right time, say the custodians
of tragic etiquette, the interpreters of propriety
in a time of brutality—
it’s not the right time
to talk about reform,
to suggest regulation,
to offer solutions.
This is a time of grieving;
let the families mourn, let the nation weep
and forget.

How long, O Lord?

How long before we wake from our restless slumber
of acquiescence to evil, our cooperation
with the works of the devil?
How long until we elect representatives
who care more for our precious children
than their precious guns,
until their thoughts and prayers
take on the proper angle to fly the confines
of their own minds, until they begin
to think and pray the right thin
and backbone to value life over reelection,
until they think it better to protect their souls
than to sell them?

And for us, the voting public?
How long until we stop rewarding scoundrels
with seats, until we raise our voices
and demand representation
that reflects our wishes,
our values; until we stop playing
and demand democracy?

And for us, the church,
the people of God?
How long until we stand unapologetically
for life, until we set our faces like flint
and say no to the executioner,
no to the border warrior,
no to the incarcerator,
no to the up-by-your-bootstraps orator,
no to the gunmaker,
no to the lobbyist for evil,
no to the Ayn Rand-reading solipsist,
no to the killing cop and the cop killer,
no to the race-baiter,
no to the “pro-life” hypocrite,
no to the “pro-choice” ideologue,
no to the pandering, AR-15-toting legislator,
no to the union buster,
no to the billionaire,
no to the tycoon,
no to the conspiracy theorist,
no to the devil in his Gucci shoes and thousand-dollar haircut,
no to the devil in overalls at the photo-op with the tractor,
and yes to life,
yes to hope,
yes to justice,
yes to you?

Uproot us, Lord, from the soil
that has become too comfortable;
send us into the world like dandelion parachutes,
ready to spread the contagion,
the promiscuous weedy plenitude
of the commonwealth of God,
where the lambs lie down with the wolves
and all the children come home from school
at the end of the day.

Amen.