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A warm, glowing September night.
Nondescript small town bar with
people enjoying fine company and revelry.
College football game just finished.
We won!
Some friends find a table and 
a deck of cards. Pinochle.
Smiling, joy, and laughter. Lively conversation.
Good will and companionship hold sway.
"A dollar a game?"

'Saturday Night Live' on the tube.
There's a wedding dance at the ballroom. 
Some of the girls are going. 
Have to change, though.
No levis in the ballroom.
So and so went to get slacks and a blouse.
Is everyone leaving in one car?
The warm, atmosphere inside
mirrors the night.
"Are you going to bid or go with your girlfriend?"

Someone at the bar's entrance shouting, 
"call for help, someone is passed out in 
the street." People rush outside
into the street. Crumpled body.
Lying on her side. Tossed cruelly
to the indifferent concrete.
Approach the lifeless form.
Warn everyone else to stay inside the bar.
She gasps involuntarily. Her body struck numb.
Struggling just to be. Seized in the
fleeting moments it takes to surrender life.
She had changed in her car.
Struck, carried, then tossed recklessly on pavement.
Kneel, be there, pray.
It was all anyone could do.
How could someone do this and flee?

Back up the street an ambulance.
Driving the wrong direction, but coming.
In the other direction. Half a block away.
Her dress shoes.
She never made it dancing with her friends.
Ambulance and police. She is in good hands.
Radio messages. Red, white, blue, and amber lights.
Being transported. Everyone watches her leave.
Childhood innocence and denial lie
to the inmost self saying,
"she is going to be alright."

Moments pass seeming like hours.
An ambulance driver and policeman
walk into the bar to share.
They knew everyone would want to know.
They affirm a creed of caring.
She is gone. Too much impact.
Too much damage. They call each and
every person in the bar "good people" and 
reassure that nothing, nothing could have been done.

The jewel-like aura of a fine September
evening dissipates in waves of grief.
Something always fills a vacuum.
Replacing the evening's glow are tears, emptiness.
Questions without answers.
People crying, sharing, holding on.
It is a close-knit small town.
People living to share the 'good times.'
Now, called on to support each other
during incomprehensible sorrow.
Silent moments. People leaving 
by twos and threes. Going home.

Outside. 
The night.
Transformed from a balmy, radiant evening
into shadow and sepia.
The dark specter of death is tangible.
Surreal. Inescapable. A somber metamorphosis.
Time seems frozen in the emptiness.
Reality strikes us numb.
Not doing well keeping emotions in check.
Why try to hold it in?

Cry...............Cry....................
Cry for the loss, an exquisite life.
Cry for the family. Cry for the friends.
Cry for the loss of purity and innocence.

                                Elegy for Innocence
                                4-29-15
                                Free Verse
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