Every parent’s nightmare

In a town north of Seattle
where I grew up as a boy,
a trigger-happy freshman with a gun
unveiled a reign of terror
shooting friends and then himself
leaving Marysville in shock when all was done.

It’s the nightmare parents dream of
as they send their kids to school
fearing what played out at Columbine repeats.
It’s the scary world we live in
where what seems both safe and sound
is a place where guns and mental illness meet.

God of mercy, bathe the victims
of this senseless tragedy
in Your cleansing grace that washes white as snow.
Give the students that must carry on
the means to move ahead
as they do their best painstakingly and slow.