Nineteen Stars

In half vacant streets bowl entangled rag and bone Of the memories rising to greet the day, Then sinking again when twilight clamps jaws That chew and consume the light away. On perimeter fences, tattered and torn Hang sadly the keepsakes of words and toys; When the rain melts the words and moths eat the cloth What remains for the nineteen girls and boys? How violently taken, snatched and snuffed, Poor candles blown out in a hurricane blast; Their innocent lives of all possible futures, Had barely begun, then suddenly passed. What keepers of reason could ever explain To the faces of children that wonder and weep, Any semblance of logic why ones such as they Were erased in an instant, banished to sleep? It is kinder to speak of the nineteen stars Born of nineteen souls passing into the night And their angelic eyes shining down with a gleam, Shining down from the heavens, eternal and bright.