Down Time

This past week saw the one year anniversary of the Parkland, FL. shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. A painful day, along with countless others, many of us wish to let go.



Down Time


What do we do
with days we wish to forget?

An anniversary
of a marriage now scrapped,
a date in April
capped by a fatal flood,
Mother's Day
without a reason for flowers,
the final workday
of a plant shuttered for cost,
a sibling's birthday
with no further candles to count,
a sunny September morning
exploding a nation's sense of security.

Like duty bound, humorless aunts
they reappear each circle of the year

and never do they not come back.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor