I always have something to say —
a word,
a thought,
a sentence to share.
My role is to comfort?
Today I’m left speechless,
My eyes well with tears
as a Kindergartener sits across from me.
She says to me:
“I love my teacher.
I don’t want her to die.”
Empty platitudes have no meaning here,
What comfort can I give?
Safety I cannot promise,
Solace I cannot give.
We sit in silence until
these words I find:
“Did you tell your teacher
that you love her today?”
Her eyes full of fear and tears she nods, “no.”
“Tell her that you love her,
Tell her that you love her.”
It’s all that I could say.
I love my students;
I don’t want them to die.
When the comforter
has run out of comfort
He can only sit in silence
and grieve with her.
I love my students;
I don’t want them to die.
I will tell them that we love them;
I tell them that we love them.
Today, I pictured my own funeral,
Imagined the songs they would sing.
While they hide behind an empty God,
They weaponize his words.
“Dios te protegerá,”
A mother tries to soothe her weeping child.
She seems convinced.
But if God could save us,
wouldn’t he have by now?
Only the bearer of these weapons
can put them down.
And we beg:
Have mercy upon us.
Have mercy upon us.
I wrote this poem
sitting on the playground
where our Brown and Black children play
where beads of sweat drip down my back
where the heat intensifies
where there’s no shade
where we can only hope,
maybe beg,
that ours aren’t next.
So today,
Dear children,
We love you,
We love you,
We love you.
Daniel, the author of this poem, is an educator and mental health therapist in East Oakland, California.
