Taps for Twenty Children
A Poem about Newtown
There are twenty empty places
at twenty empty tables
where families used to eat.
There are twenty empty bedrooms
and twenty empty beds
where children used to sleep.
There are twenty empty desks
where children used to learn
from teachers who would teach them
how to work together
and how to get along—
teachers who had loved them,
teachers who are gone.
All had gone to school one day
and never did go home.
___
Mourning parents gather,
seeking comfort in each other.
They search each eye for answers,
knowing there are none,
wishing they could turn back time
to keep their kids from harm.
No one else can really know
what they know alone,
and what they know together,
and how it is to live
with twenty empty places
at twenty empty tables,
with twenty empty beds
in twenty empty bedrooms
in twenty empty homes.
It’s Taps for twenty children
in twenty tiny coffins
in twenty tiny graves
under twenty tiny stones
where they’ll stay forever,
all together but alone,
where they don’t belong.
___
Poem “Taps for Twenty Children”. ©Daniel Mark Extrom 2013. All rights reserved.
