By Nancy Patrick

With so much grief and confusion around the world (political stalemates, wars, school and other public shootings, and general violent behavior), I think of all the displaced and orphaned children and their disrupted and often shattered childhoods. Steven Hartman, CBS journalist who produces the series “On the Road,” has a poignant documentary on Netflix entitled “All the Empty Rooms.” Several of the parents of children murdered in school shootings granted him and his cameraman permission to explore and film the empty rooms of their deceased children. Few words are needed as the camera scans the former lives of vibrant, living children. The world is so full of turmoil that I often wonder “Why?”

The Lost Children
Through stone cold eyes—
Unspoken curses, pleas;
Rage seethes—
For the hurts remembered, unredressed;
And retribution’s spider
Spins the web of pain
For all tomorrows.

The Empty House
The house is empty,
All the rooms are bare.
But the furniture stands 
As it always has;
The curtains on the windows remain.
On the walls hang the same
pictures as before,
And the floor has the
marks of a threadbare rug.
Things look the same, seem
the same, you say.
But my house is empty anyway.

Why
I sat and stared at the expanse of sky
And tried to fathom the whys of life.
Why was the baby born too soon?
Or the kitten on the street run down?
Why did the bird fall from its nest,
Or why do children get cancer and die?
And why do evil men prosper and lie
While the honest ones pray and sweat and die?
Why when I’ve done all the right things,
Do I feel forlorn and cannot sing?
Job asked why and so do I.
But he never found out and neither will I.

Nancy Patrick is a retired teacher who lives in Abilene and enjoys writing