In the most prosperous country in the world
families always live in fear.
On February 14, 2018
parents and students across the country
were totally lost in tears.
Every morning before parents drop their children
at school, they silently pray:
"Please protect my child from any danger and harm.
Please keep this school from all evils.
Please make it a safe place for children to learn
and have a good time with friends and teachers."
As parents are hugging and kissing goodbye to their children
in front of the school, they silently pray:
"Please protect this school from all wrongdoers.
Please let me see my child again unharmed after school."
In the most prosperous country in the world
families have been living in terror for many many years.
Teachers and students, as little as kindergarteners,
have been exercising lockdown drills
for terror is part of their daily life
it is a norm to learn to "stop, drop and cover",
to "make your body as small as you can"
in order to survive a mass massacre.
Such is a routine - part of life in post-modern era
in the most prosperous country in the world.
Would prayers be able to protect children from evils?
Aren't they just echoes in an echo chamber?
After February 14, 2018
parents are frustrated and scared,
students feel empty and angry
going back to school
their 17 friends and teachers there no more.
In the most prosperous country in the world
politicians ramble on and on to get elected
from their mouths spat out big words
"Freedom", "Justice", "Democracy",
"Fraternity", "Equality".....
During campaigns it is so simple and easy for them
to blame their opponents, rivals and enemies.
It is extremely difficult for them to learn
to listen to the people's sufferings
to feel families' stunning shocks and stupefying losses
to learn to care about and to learn to love
the speechless, the weakest, the most vulnerable.
Use your votes, not your prayers
to protect children from wrongdoers.
Use your right to voice for the speechless,
the innocents people who could voice no more
who didn't know why their lives were ended
at such a young age
in the school they loved so much.
From their graves
and from every corner on earth
I hear echoes:
How many more to die?
If in the most prosperous country in the world
law makers have sold their souls to the devils and serve the evils,
I would rather be a disobedient citizen,
living unarmed among chimps and gorillas in the jungle.
