Lilies and Not Children – by Gavin Kayner

(Pakistan)

The grave diggers
Planting bodies
Like bulbs
For spring
Linger under a
Wolf moon
Their minds
Callused as their hands
Against the grim work –
The interment of
128 girls murdered
Their school turned into
A penny arcade by terrorists
Their screams caught
In the cracks and crevasses
Of blood-spattered
Bullet-riddled walls.

One more devastation
In the service of an ideology.

Oh, but that we
Believed in nothing more
Than the litany of flowers

Oh, that we
Worshiped only
In the sanctuary
Of their bowers.

Oh, that we
Shared naught but
The communion
of their nectar.

Oh, that we would
Throw off the yoke
Of corrupted fairy tales
Licenses for butchering
Our neighbors.
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!

0h, that we planted lilies
And not children in the earth.

Gavin KaynerGavin Kayner’s plays, prose and poetry have won numerous awards and appeared in a variety of publications. These include: Magazine, Passager, Smoky Blue Lit Mag, Quibble, Something About a Mailbox, Ekphratic Review, Witcraft and so forth. He thanks the folks at Panoply for the opportunity. He can be contacted at nckgwk75@gmail.com.