Nine Souls

[Note: this poem was written in memory of a specific mass killing at a church, but there has been since then so much evil done at churches, temples, and mosques--all houses of God...as are all schools where children go to learn. ] When he came to the church, a disciple of the Opposition, did he plan to take his time? Did he relish watching those good people around the table as they shared their struggles, with others, themselves, God? Did he play in his forsaken mind (so bereft of love or even a tinge of compassion) just whose life he would take first, and who would die last? What a sense of power a gun gives to a coward, playing god in God's own house. Joyful he must have felt as he took their lives but freed their souls-nine souls he could not see yet they saw him, standing exultant over their now unneeded bodies, his hate satiated. But they would not hate him, for God's children love, and love now filled their souls, as it filled their lives when they walked on the earth. So they would pray together one last time in the church they loved, praying for the damned soul of the sad man until the angels came to carry them off to God's open arms.