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Nashville Covenant School Shooting Poems

I am dedicating these poems to the children and school employees who perished in the Nashville Presbyterian Covenant School shootings on March 27, 2023. While there have been so many school shootings — including Aurora, Cleveland Elementary, Cokeville Elementary, Columbine, Kent State, Parkland, Rancho Tehama Elementary, Robb Elementary, Sandy Hook, Santa Fe, Thurston High School, University of Texas, Uvalde, Virginia Tech, West Nickel, Westside Middle School and 49th Street Elementary School — this one hits close to home because I live in Nashville.

by Michael R. Burch



Nashville Covenant Call to Love
by Michael R. Burch

Our hearts are broken today
for our children's small bodies lie broken;
let us gather them up, as we may,
that the truth of our Love may be spoken;
then, when we have put them away
to nevermore dream, or be woken,
let us think of the living, and pray
for true Love, not some miserable token,
to command us, for strength to obey.

The three students shot and killed in the Nashville Covenant massacre were nine-year-olds. They were identified as Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney. Three adults were also killed in the shooting: 61-year-old Cynthia Peak, 61-year-old Mike Hill and 60-year-old Katherine Koonce. It is no longer good enough to talk about loving our children and praying for them to be safe. We must protect them from mass murderers armed with assault weapons. The alleged serial killer, Audrey Hale, was reportedly armed with an AR-style rifle and an AR-style pistol. In more civilized nations citizens cannot legally purchase such military-grade weapons. The Nashville Covenant massacre marked the 19th shooting at an American school or university, so far in just the first three months of 2023, according to CNN. With six victims dead, the Covenant massacre is the deadliest school shooting since the one in Uvalde, Texas that left 21 people dead in May 2022.



Come Lord and Lift
by Tom Merrill

Come Lord, and lift the fallen bird
   Abandoned on the ground;
The soul bereft and longing so
   To have the lost be found.

The heart that cries—let it but hear
   Its sweet love answering,
Or out of ether one faint note
   Of living comfort wring.



For a Slain Child, with Butterflies
by Michael R. Burch

Where does the butterfly go
when lightning rails, when thunder howls,
when hailstones scream while winter scowls
and nights compound dark frosts with snow?
Where does the butterfly go?

Where does the rose hide its bloom
when night descends oblique and chill
beyond the capacity of moonlight to fill?
When the only relief's a banked fire's glow,
where does the butterfly go?

And where shall the spirit flee
when life is harsh, too harsh to face,
and hope is lost without a trace?
Oh, when the light of life runs low,
where does the butterfly go?



Little Thrush
by Martin Mc Carthy

for a slain child

When your songs no longer flow,
little thrush;

when gunfire lays you low,
little thrush;

where does your spirit go,
little thrush?

What happens to all you know,
little thrush?



It's hard to think of mothers not having the chance to say goodbye to their children, and just as hard to think of them having to say goodbye. Three nine-year-old children died in another senseless massacre. Surely as a nation we must do everything possible to prevent either scenario, to the best of our ability.

Frail Envelope of Flesh
by Michael R. Burch

Frail envelope of flesh,
lying cold on the surgeon’s table
with anguished eyes
like your mother’s eyes
and a heartbeat weak, unstable ...

Frail crucible of dust,
brief flower come to this—
your tiny hand
in your mother’s hand
for a last bewildered kiss ...

Brief mayfly of a child,
to live nine artless years!
Now your mother’s lips
seal up your lips
from the Deluge of her tears ...



Uvalde: May 24, 2022
by Bob Zisk

It is late Spring. The children fall: shorn leaves,
Small, crumpled birds impaled on cholla spines.
Gray thunderheads break battered mourning doves
And swallowtails whiplashed in razor rains.
Shredded in the powdery morning light,
Winged bodies now must shed warmth in the gray
Mid-day glow, and smooth talkers will soon prate
And preen themselves to field the useful lie.

Joy is dead where the children used to play,
And in this hurtful season green desire
Is thwarted, cut and dried beyond the mire
Of silence, sorrow, and the childless day,
Where a numbing frost of clay-cold breath
Swaddles them in the earthy strength of death.



Sunset
by Michael R. Burch

Between the prophecies of morning
and twilight’s revelations of wonder,
the sky is ripped asunder.

The moon lurks in the clouds,
waiting, as if to plunder
the dusk of its lilac iridescence,

and in the bright-tentacled sunset
we imagine a presence
full of the fury of lost innocence.

What we find within strange whorls of drifting flame,
brief patterns mauling winds deform and maim,
we recognize at once, but cannot name.



Nashville Covenant Epigram
 
After a mass shooting at The Covenant School on March 27, 2023.
 
When all is said and done,
when prayers have all been prayed,
and solemn thoughts displayed,
the truth is: it's the gun.



Nashville Covenant Haiku

I wrote the following haiku-like poem on March 27, 2023, after hearing about the Nashville Covenant massacre.

As springs’ budding blossoms emerge
the raptors glide mercilessly.
—Michael R. Burch

These are other haiku-like poems and translations I have dedicated to school shooting victims, survivors and their families.

“Slain” — an impossible word to comprehend.
The male lion murders cubs,
licks his lips, devours them.
—Michael R. Burch

I wrote the poem above thinking of the NRA and gun dealers who sell assault weapons to the general public. In this case the lip-licking is over money at the expense of children's lives.

War
stood at the end of the hall
in the long shadows.
—Watanabe Hakusen, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Both victor and vanquished are dewdrops:
flashes of light
briefly illuminating the void.
—Ôuchi Yoshitaka, loose translation/interpretation of his jisei (death poem) by Michael R. Burch

This world—to what may we compare it?
To autumn fields darkening at dusk,
dimly lit by lightning flashes.
—Minamoto no Shitago, loose translation/interpretation of his jisei (death poem) by Michael R. Burch




Epitaph for a Nashville Covenant Student
by Michael R. Burch

I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.



Before the Onslaught
by Martin Mc Carthy

It’s a squally September morning
and on the pavement outside my window
a blonde woman and a blonde girl –
presumably her daughter – are strolling
steadily towards the schoolhouse.

Both are dressed in pink,
and the girl has a matching satchel
bearing the image of My Little Pony,
which explains to some degree
her own neat ponytail.

At the corner, near the traffic lights,
there’s a shop with a sheltering canopy,
and they stop there, for the mother
to button the girl’s small jacket
against a slowly gathering onslaught.

Yet neither seems to be in a hurry
to hurry into the rain,
or into the rest of their lives –
where, already, a small scattering of cherry leaves
lies trampled in a puddle.



Epitaph for the Child Erotion
by Marcus Valerius Martial

Lie lightly on her, turf and dew ...
She put so little weight on you.



This poem is for mothers who lost children at Nashville Covenant and in other similar tragedies ...

Childless
by Michael R. Burch

How can she bear her grief?
Mightier than Atlas, she shoulders the weight
Of one fallen star.



Requiescat
by Oscar Wilde

Tread lightly, she is near
Under the snow,
Speak gently, she can hear
The daisies grow.

All her bright golden hair
Tarnished with rust,
She that was young and fair
Fallen to dust.

Lily-like, white as snow,
She hardly knew
She was a woman, so
Sweetly she grew.

Coffin-board, heavy stone,
Lie on her breast,
I vex my heart alone,
She is at rest.

Peace, Peace, she cannot hear
Lyre or sonnet,
All my life's buried here,
Heap earth upon it.



I Pray Tonight
by Michael R. Burch

for the Nashville Covenant survivors

I pray tonight
the starry light
might
surround you.

I pray
each day
that, come what may,
no dark thing confound you.

I pray ere the morrow
an end to your sorrow.
May angels' white chorales
sing, and astound you.



Nashville Covenant Call to Action
by Michael R. Burch

We see their small coffins
and our hearts break,
so we ask the NRA—
"Did you make a mistake?"

And we vow to save the next child
for sweet love's sake,
but also to protect ourselves
from such heartache.



"A Revolver" is a recently discovered, unpublished and previously unknown poem by Carl Sandburg. Although it was written decades before Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Sandy Hook and Parkland, the poem seems highly relevant and might have been written just a few minutes ago and addressed to the "religious right," the NRA and its powerful gun lobby. "A Revolver" was discovered among Sandburg’s archives, which are housed in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

A Revolver
by Carl Sandburg

Here is a revolver.
It has an amazing language all its own.
It delivers unmistakable ultimatums.
It is the last word.
A simple, little human forefinger can tell a terrible story with it.
Hunger, fear, revenge, robbery hide behind it.
It is the claw of the jungle made quick and powerful.
It is the club of the savage turned to magnificent precision.
It is more rapid than any judge or court of law.
It is less subtle and treacherous than any one lawyer or ten.
When it has spoken, the case can not be appealed to the supreme court, nor any mandamus nor any injunction nor any stay of execution come in and interfere with the original purpose.
And nothing in human philosophy persists more strangely than the old belief that God is always on the side of those who have the most revolvers.



Post-Nashville Covenant of the GOP
by Michael R. Burch

We love our God.
We love our guns.
We despise the weak.
Don’t call us Huns!

We love our kids.
We love our schools.
We love our guns.
Don’t call us fools!

We pledge ourselves
to the strong defense
of the Constitution
and our Mensch.

Once re-elected,
Trump will rule
with God and guns
and safer schools.



Evil is as evil does.
Evil never needs a cause.
Evil loves amoral “laws,”
laughs and licks its blood-red claws
while kids are patched together with gauze.
—Michael R. Burch



I have this theory
that if one person can go out of their way to show compassion,
then it will start a chain reaction of the same.
People will never know how far a little kindness can go.
—Rachel Joy Scott, a victim of the Columbine massacre



This is an inspirational quote by Rachel Joy Scott that has not only become a poem, but a form of visual art:



Just passing by
Just coming through
Not staying long
I always knew
This home I have
Will never last
—Rachel Joy Scott



Darrell Scott is the father of Rachel Joy Scott, the first of the thirteen victims of the Columbine High School massacre. Rachel was a beautiful 17-year-old girl, and an aspiring writer and actress. Her father wrote the poetic lines below four days before speaking to Congress on the subject of the mass killings of students and teachers, the role of the NRA, and gun control:

Your laws ignore our deepest needs
Your words are empty air.
You've stripped away our heritage.
You've outlawed simple prayer.

Now gunshots fill our classrooms.
And precious children die.
You seek for answers everywhere.
And ask the question "WHY"? ...



Darrell Scott has helped create an organization called Rachel's Challenge, which works to combat school violence and bullying.






Before she died, Rachel Scott drew this haunting picture with thirteen tears that may have prophesied her fate, and the fate of the other victims. But perhaps the flower being watered by the tears symbolizes love and compassion ... did Rachel predict that her death and those of her friends would lead to a new flowering of love and compassion?



Rachel's Tears



These are some of the comments written on Rachel's casket by her friends and loved ones ...



Rachel's Casket: an Outpouring of Love and Affection



Darrell Scott's following remarks were made before the subcommittee on crime of the House Judiciary Committee at the Rayburn House office building in Washington, D.C. on May 27, 1999. Here are excerpts from his testimony:

"Since the dawn of creation, there has been both good and evil in the heart of men and of women. We all contain the seeds of kindness or the seeds of violence.
The death of my wonderful daughter Rachel Joy Scott and the deaths of that heroic teacher and the other eleven children who died must not be in vain. Their blood cries out for answers. The first recorded act of violence was when Cain slew his brother Abel out in the field ... My daughter's death will not be in vain. The young people of this country will not allow that to happen ... The young people of our nation hold the key. There is a spiritual awakening taking place that will not be squelched! We do not need more religion. We do not need more gaudy television evangelists spewing out verbal religious garbage. We do not need more million dollar church buildings built while people with basic needs are being ignored ..."

I hope and pray that Darrell Scott is correct, and that young Americans and the parents and other adults who love them will not allow the mayhem and carnage in our school halls to continue. Darrell Scott, as I understand him, has called for a spiritual awakening, but I'm afraid that mass murderers are not spiritual people, nor are they even mildly influenced by calls for compassion and justice. So I believe we really do need stronger gun control laws, to keep assault weapons out of their hands. Here is a poem written by his daughter ...

Create in me
—Nothing.
Invest in me
—Nothing.
I will create my own dream,
my own image, my own future.
No one else can do that for me.
—signed Rachel Joy in her journal, in which she wrote immediately above the poem, in prose: "I am my own responsibility. Feel no obligation, because I will be no one's success story but my own."



Spurred on in part by writings in the notebooks and diaries left behind by his daughter, Darrell Scott — the son of an Episcopalian minister, though he himself is adamantly non-denominational — quit his job, set up a non-profit organization called The Columbine Redemption, and embarked on a grueling schedule of speaking engagements all across the United States to spread his message.





On May 2nd, Rachel wrote in her journal: “This is my last year Lord. I have gotten what I can. Thank you.” She also drew a picture, known as Rachel’s Tears; it has two eyes with thirteen tears falling down. Her parents believe that Rachel somehow knew that she and twelve other people were going to die within a year.





Darrell Scott said: "Rachel had a unique way of tilting her head to the side when she was thinking seriously. And I remember her beautiful smile. Rachel had an inward motivation to accomplish as much as possible. Whenever she sensed an injustice being done to someone, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant it was, indignation rose up within her. She was always ready to stand up for anyone who she felt was mistreated."





According to Dana Scott, Rachel's big sister, she had a great sense of humor. She once recorded a voicemail on their home phone that said, “You have reached Queen Rachel and her humble servants … please leave a message after the beep.” Her middle name, Joy, was truly one of the best ways to describe her fun-loving personality.





Rachel's Challenge was started by Rachel's dad and stepmom, Darrell and Sandy Scott, when they realized that the writings and drawings Rachel left not only had an impact on her friends and classmates, but also resonated with students around the world. Although Rachel was a typical teenager who wrote about her "ups and downs," she had a passion and conviction that she would someday change the world. The Scott family knew her story and passion had to be told to inspire others to make their world a better place. More than 18 million people have been touched by Rachel's message, and they continue the legacy of making a difference in their communities. Each year at least two million more people are added to that number. In one survey, 78% of students indicated they would definitely intervene in a bullying incident in their school after seeing Rachel's Challenge. In a recent 24 month period, Rachel's Challenge received more than 450 emails from students who indicated that they changed their mind about taking their own life after hearing Rachel's Challenge.



Rachel's Challenge is a non-profit, non-political, non-religious organization based in Littleton, Colorado, a suburb of Denver.



Here is absolutely exquisite poem about lost love that I would like to dedicate to all the Sandy Hook victims and their parents and families:

Music When Soft Voices Die (To —)
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory—
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the belovèd's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

The students who died were all seven or younger. Here is a poem by one of the all-time great poets who lost his son at the age of seven:

On My First Son
by Ben Jonson

Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy.
Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
O, could I lose all father now! For why
Will man lament the state he should envy?
To have so soon 'scaped world's and flesh's rage,
And, if no other misery, yet age?
Rest in soft peace, and asked, say, "Here doth lie
Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry,
For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such
As what he loves may never like too much."

The lives, safety and happiness of our children depend on our ability to persuade the NRA and its political lackeys to stop exalting money and political gain above the life, liberty and happiness of innocents. What is the cost of banning assault weapons, compared to the ultimate price innocents pay when they are used by madmen playing Rambo in classrooms and theaters? Ironically, just hours before the Sandy Hook massacre, in a weekly column that I write for the Nashville City Paper, I pointed out that right-wing politicians are not just demanding the "right" of citizens to bear loaded handguns into restaurants that serve alcohol and bars — a combustible mix. No, people who call themselves "conservative Christians" in collusion with the NRA and its gun lobby are demanding the right to carry assault weapons everywhere ... which "logically" means into universities, high schools, grade schools, kindergartens, pre-schools, Sunday schools and maternity wards. When I wrote this, I was speaking ironically — I thought — but then a few hours later the NRA and its political minions made me seem like a prophet.

Shooting Gallery
by Michael R. Burch

If we live by the rule of the gun
what can a small child do,
but run?

Sixteen of the students who died at Sandy Hook were six years old; the other four students were seven. I wrote the poem below for another child gunned down by a madman. While we cannot legislate sanity, we can be sane enough to legislate away the "right" of serial killers to purchase assault weapons so easily. We can defend many small victims from such carnage, if "we the people" have the wisdom and the will to defend them.

Child of 9-11
by Michael R. Burch

a poem for Christina-Taylor Green, who was born
on September 11, 2001 and died at the age of nine,
shot to death ...

Child of 9-11, beloved,
I bring this lily, lay it down
here at your feet, and eiderdown,
and all soft things, for your gentle spirit.
I bring this psalm — I hope you hear it.

Much love I bring — I lay it down
here by your form, which is not you,
but what you left this shell-shocked world
to help us learn what we must do
to save another child like you.

Child of 9-11, I know
you are not here, but watch, afar
from distant stars, where angels rue
the brutal things some mortals do.
I also watch; I also rue.

And so I make this pledge and vow:
though I may weep, I will not rest
nor will my pen fail heaven's test
till guns and wars and hate are banned
from every shore, from every land.

Child of 9-11, I grieve
your tender life, cut short ... bereaved,
what can I do, but pledge my life
to saving lives like yours? Belief
in your sweet worth has led me here ...

I give my all: my pen, this tear,
this lily and this eiderdown,
and all soft things my heart can bear;
I bear them to your final bier,
and leave them with my promise, here.

The Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings left 27 students and educators dead, and question our nation's sanity and resolve to put children's lives above money and politics. Why do we allow serial killers like Adam Lanza to have such easy access to assault weapons and wreak destruction on innocent children and their teachers? Surely every thinking American knows that assault weapons are being sold and distributed so freely only to fill the coffers of gun dealers and the NRA, and for the political gain of those politicians who accept their bribes (euphemistically called "campaign contributions"). When will we call this evil collusion what it really is: treason, infamy, and the murder of innocents? Adam Lanza may have been insane, but what is the excuse of the NRA and its bribe-taking political lackeys?

This haiku below makes me think of the students and teachers of Sandy Hook, who were trapped in a war zone:

War
stood at the end of the hall
in the long shadows
—original haiku by Watanabe Hakusen, translation by Michael R. Burch

It is up to us, as a nation, to choose between the "rights" of adults to carry assault weapons and loaded, concealed weapons without restriction, and the right of children not to be exposed to the war zones that other dubious "right" creates in school hallways. Are we going to make it "legal" for anyone with a grudge against life to carry out Rambo-like assaults in grade school classrooms and corridors? What if the next would-be Rambo wants to up the ante by shooting up a kindergarten or nursery school?

Piercing the Shell
by Michael R. Burch

If we strip away all the accouterments of war,
perhaps we'll discover what the heart is for.

It seems to me that the NRA has declared a war — an open season — on our children, by insisting that assault weapons must be available to every Tom, Dick and Dirty Harry. But what will we, the people, say and do?

Whence Now?
by Michael R. Burch

Grown darkly accustomed to grief,
will we ever turn over a new leaf?

Who knows what wonderful things the twenty dead children and the seven dead educators might have accomplished, if they had lived? Now they are only memories, and for most of the world memories diffuse with time. Let us try to keep them alive in our minds and hearts, and prevent what happened to them from happening to other innocents and their caregivers.

Something
by Michael R. Burch

Something inescapable is lost—
lost like a pale vapor curling up into shafts of moonlight,
vanishing in a gust of wind toward an expanse of stars
immeasurable and void.

Something uncapturable is gone—
gone with the spent leaves and illuminations of autumn,
scattered into a haze with the faint rustle of parched grass
and remembrance.

Something unforgettable is past—
blown from a glimmer into nothingness, or less,
and finality has swept into a corner where it lies
in dust and cobwebs and silence.

Here is a touching poem by one of the all-time great poets, William Blake. It calls us to remember the innocence and potential of even the youngest children. Surely it is up to us to protect them and make sure they wake to see each new morning, until they realize their full potential.

Cradle Song
by William Blake

Sleep, sleep, beauty bright,
Dreaming in the joys of night;
Sleep, sleep; in thy sleep
Little sorrows sit and weep.

Sweet babe, in thy face
Soft desires I can trace,
Secret joys and secret smiles,
Little pretty infant wiles.

As thy softest limbs I feel
Smiles as of the morning steal
O'er thy cheek, and o'er thy breast
Where thy little heart doth rest.

O the cunning wiles that creep
In thy little heart asleep!
When thy little heart doth wake,
Then the dreadful night shall break.

If you read this far, I thank you very much for your time, and I ask you once again to consider doing everything you can to help prevent similar things from happening to other students and their educators and caregivers.

These poems are dedicated to the victims and survivors of school shootings at Aurora, Brentwood High School, Cal State Fullerton, Cleveland Elementary, Cokeville Elementary, Columbine, Finney High School, Frontier Middle School, Heath High School, Kent State, Lindhurst High School, Marshall County High School, Nashville Covenant, Northern Illinois University, Oakland Elementary, Olean High School, Palo Duro High School, Parkland, Pearl High School, Rancho Tehama Elementary, Red Lake, Robb Elementary, Sandy Hook, Santa Fe, Santa Monica College, Spanaway Junior High, Thurston High School, University of Iowa, University of Texas, Uvalde, Virginia Tech, West Nickel, Westside Middle School and 49th Street Elementary School ... and to others too numerous to mention individually, as much as we would like to do so.

Related pages: Nashville Covenant Poems, Santa Fe Poems, Sandy Hook Poems, Aurora Poems, Columbine Poems, Courtni Webb's Sandy Hook Poem and Possible Expulsion, Darfur Poems, Gaza Poems, Haiti Poems, Hiroshima Poems, Holocaust Poems, Nakba Poems, 911 Poems, Trail of Tears

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