Blessed Are the Merciful

Amish schoolhouse shooting, Nickle Mines, PA

I didn't trust their forgiveness.

Before the blood cooled on the schoolhouse floor
they held the killer's widow in their arms,

raised money for his children,
lined his grave site with a row of patient horses.

Somewhere in town there had to be a father
splitting a trunk and imagining the crush

of the murderer's skull. There had to be a mother
hurling a Bible at the wall that received her prayers.

Or is it just the flash and noise of my own life
that primes me for anger? Does scrolling

through playlists in traffic fill the spaces
in my mind reserved for grace?

Forgiveness requires imagination.
Eye for an eye is efficient.

For the man brought chains.
He brought wires, eyehooks, and boards.

He brought a bag of candles and lubricant
and secured little girls with plastic ties.

Two sisters begged to be shot first
to spare the others.

He shot them first. Then the rest.
One child with twenty-four bullets.

Perhaps they know something that I don't,
something to do with the morning rising

over an open field. The fathers receive
the meadowlark, the swallowtail,

the good corn rising into the fog.
The mothers ride their carriages into town,

accepting the rumbles of the stony road,
tripping into the rough hands of God.

Tania Runyan, Simple Weight (FutureCycle Press, 2010)