illustrator: Katerina Babanofsky
The Year Gentleness Died by Michael Kiesow Moore
It was the year gentleness died.
Larry was first to go
the sweet young man covered with purple lesions
He was the sweetest. Men can be sweet, you know.
Then it was Keith’s turn.
He was a rebel rouser, full of righteous anger.
But at his core he was all gentleness.
And it was a plague against the gentle.
And then Frederic went,
dear lovely Frederic.
His spirit was like a puppy’s
bouncing and joyful, always joyful,
and now gone. and if you never met Kerry—
I could do this all day, telling you
all whom we lost the year gentleness died.
They went in the tens, then the hundreds,
we lost them by the thousands,
then ten times that across all the lands. They kept falling, all the gentle ones.
“The Year Gentleness Died” by Michael Kiesow Moore from The Song Castle. Nodin Press © 2019.
The Vibrant Channeled Creator 