A solemn day,
sadness hovers over half-mast flags.
We gather to
hear 3000-plus names and remember
lives, dreams,
expectations, all snuffed out.
Radical leaders
spout hatred so dark and cold that
even their own followers
are destroyed.
Such malevolence
wears many disguises:
sometimes robed
in authority or piety, but
always adorned
with the arrogance of mere men,
blind to their own
fallibility. I cringe at
such certainty –
whatever cause – that seeks to
plant in the
hearts of people such hate.
