Turn Back the Clock
I cannot look at the face
of the man who killed Norway's children.
I turn away in horror.
Why? I ask my husband, why
did he kill children?
Why children? How could they have harmed him?
Why did he dress as a policeman, the one person
we teach our children to trust, to go to for help
and safety? Why did he then
shoot them?
Why did he shoot them as they ran, shoot them as they swam
off the island toward the mainland, trying to escape?
Why
did he do it? How could he?
Why? I cry.
And cry.
Fibers of my heart
tear apart
shred
the little strands of muscles part
and all the soul leaks out.
I want to go back in time
gather the children
and protect them.
I want to turn back the clocks
and make them safe.
I want to restore
the lives they have lost
and let them flow forward again
to their own fruition.
I want to go backwards in time
and undo the evil
that made the man
do what he did
before he did it.
"If you want to bake an apple pie
from scratch
you must first invent the universe."
I want to reinvent the world
without that pain.
I want to erase every thread
that led to that event,
unwind it, unravel it
back to its source,
ablate that well of darkness
and set the wheels turning again
so those children run free,
laugh, grow up.
Or I want
someone
somehow
to
save
those children
who can no longer be saved.
I cannot look at the face
of Anders Behring Breivik.
I want to trust the world again.
Mary Stebbins Taitt
"If you want to bake an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe." Carl Sagan
110725-0900-2a(2), 110724 1st draft
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