In the Mourning

"Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes in the morning." — Psalm 30:5

This mourning begins with eyes:
ours which open
and the eyes a gun closed,
the barrel a chamber in which there is found no heart,
for every latch and mechanism of the machine moves with menace
and every finger entangled and wound around its trigger
draws closed the stage curtains of peace.

This mourning begins with flesh—
our stance under a persistent sun
as a body stretches across a coroner’s table like the hide of a deer.
In such an occasion, a body’s bullet holes
become mouths. They speak of the perils our muscles
hope not to know. They reveal what it’s like
to be whole and come undone
and linger like litter.

Parkland.
Pulse.
Emanuel.
Columbine.

For you, we combine this mourning
with the mournings that have become before it.
We take complacent hands and give them calluses.
We take complicit knuckles and rap them against the door of justice.
We take stubborn feet and urge them to move.
We take fallen tears and bend them into waves.

For you, we make this mourning a mourning that can end grief entirely,
dismantle and, at the same time, renew:
fix what should have never been broken.

For you, we walk the roads
that many have wandered before us.

The processional of J.F.K., his casket blanketed
by a flag red as blood. The longing for King, this city
once ablaze when weeping failed to quell sadness.

For you, the gun-wounded, the gunned down,
and the loved ones who were left behind,
we speak in prayer
and advance in action.

For you, the gun-wounded, the gunned down,
and the loved ones who were left behind,
we speak in love
and we don’t go quietly.

The author read this poem at a Sojourners-organized worship service before the March for Our Lives rally against gun violence in Washington, D.C.