And in that sleep, the world was burning
under golden flare of paper. Ink ran in shimmering tears,
rivulets of past sorrows melting upwards in soft gray smoke,
rising endlessly into star spangled night sky whose
moon watches mournfully through pockmarked skin.
Shiny metal trumps shiny hardbacks because knowledge is the
true threat here don’t you know that?
I heard you call to me from the other side of the ethereal bonfire
and I heard the distant cries of Seuss and Silverstein and Sexton
and the coughing of trees in the distant as their kin burned
to blackened crisp.
I stop somewhere, waiting for you. Or perhaps this time,
I keep walking.
Laura Daley
This piece is part of Under the Gun, a Rambler feature series on gun control & gun culture in the wake of mass shootings and the March for Our Lives. Read the other parts of the series here.
Great article!