Dave G Fawcett
October 2006
Gold gleamed Pennsylvania leaves showering to the ground
drift in susurrating groups until against trees they mound,
while in the quiet silence of Nickel Mines the sound
of unaccustomed gunshots rends the autumn air around
the one roomed schoolhouse of a small Amish town.
Death should not abide here except as the soft release
of a life long spent in a search for quiet surcease
from the travails of a modern world that gives no ease.
Death should not be an interloper turning up to tease
those in the one roomed schoolhouse of a small Amish town.
Death came stalking the children of this Amish town
as they studied in the schoolroom, eyes cast down
to the books, brows screwed up in studious frowns.
Boys sprawling, girls with hands demurely on gowns
in the one roomed schoolhouse of a small Amish town.
A local family man, disturbed, angry and adrenalin high
crashed through the schoolroom door determined to die.
The teacher and boys he told to go, the girls he told to lie
flat on the floor where he shot them one by one (Why? Why? Why?)
in the one roomed schoolhouse of a small Amish town.
Autumn gleamed Pennsylvania leaves flutter to the sound
of grieving families; mothers; fathers; brothers gathered round
the simple graves; each with a simple cross on a simple mound.
Each child a sparkling diamond ; bullet smashed and ground down
in the one room schoolhouse of a small Amish town.