By Joanne Jagoda
There will be no words⸺
no tributes, no sonnets or verses of consolation,
borrowed from the great poets
recited for a toddler named Jasper,
an adorable laughing sprite napping in his car seat,
caught in cross-fire on the I-880,
on an ordinary Saturday afternoon.
There can be no words⸺
no comprehension, no rationale, and no acceptance,
for this not quite two-year old, called up before his time.
Was he on his way to Target?
He had a Superman costume for Halloween.
If only his mother had been in a different lane,
would the angel of death still have stalked him?
There are no words⸺
when a small coffin is lowered into earth’s bosom
his precious life cut down, a felled sapling.
Who knows whom he could have been…
what gifts he might have given our damaged world?
Yes, a go fund me set up, pleas for gun control, police presence,
cameras, ten thousand dollars for information,
as if, as if….. any of that could change anything.
And there never will be words…
only rivers
of inconsolable tears.
Photo by Mary Oakey on Unsplash
Joanne Jagoda 