“Lil Town...Lil Heart”(Jesus’ Doubts) by Jöseph Lee Foster-Shumpert-Lear, 1999
Published 26 November 2005 :: Poetry
Read more by Jöseph Lee Foster-Shumpert-Lear
Dedicated in memory of those who were there and who died at Columbine High School (5/10/99)
Fear and exhaustion
Grip at my heart
Plaguing my mind With an all to familiar tune
Upon this world
Father put me
Shed my blood
Father bade me
But for What use was this
If children still die
Held within their mothers arms
Or clinched together with their friends
Being slaughtered like cattle
Upon this day
I stand before thee
Like any other day
Before. . .
Except upon this day
A shield I carry
Because my blinders
I have removed
And now can see
The world for the hell
It has become
A world where my daughter
May grow up free of slavery
And oppression
Yet still be a slave
To terror
And the child with a gun
Now I lay you down to sleep
I pray thee lord
Their soul you keep
If they die . . .
Guns are firing
Children dying
And all because a parents best
Was not good enough
Upon this day
Before thee I stand
Free of blinders
Shield in hand
For fear that the next report
Is of mine doing
Because someone’s best
Was not good enough
And again children are not safe
In the one place
Harm should never
Traverse
If they die
Before they wake
Please dear father
I pray my heart
You take
