Valinda Cried !
It is not enough to count Sheep, anymore.
Valinda cried pools of tepid tears. Tho' only a child, she recognized a crocodile or two.
Listless, unmoored, like a drifting boat at sea, Valinda saw no great harm in human tragedy.
So while the rain extinguished the flames of her desire, she doused the billowing storm-clouds with her exquisite ire.
"Alas," she moaned, and "Well, the livelong day", and other tiresome phrases (to pass the time away).
Until the last sad melody allayed the fearsome end "We'll have no more filtration. We'll have no more contrivance, but calmly wait our turn in line for other such deprivance."
She breathed her last without a sound and drifted to the floor, as others dropped like falling leaves to history's fetid maw.
How soon are the forgotten, replaced by countless more, clamoring for attention which we usually just ignore.
So do not seek the reason, but rather find the cause for quantities that end like these in some vast relentless store.
While ignorance has its moment in the sea of our complaints, we can sort and cull the flotsam of unrequited saints.
Toronto August 21, 2022
Probably more suitable for the over-35 sort-of-child. Repurposed after the shooting death of young children and their teachers in Tennessee, a state with a long tradition of gun worship. March 27, 2023