Long, too long America

Walt Whitman reflects upon Uvalde Shooting on Memorial Day

Longer, how much longer, America?
Roads paved, crisscross veins you learned from shared joys
‘We people’ prospered, in spite of dread.
Yet now, still now, unlearned despite crises of anguish,
Yet again, again and still again —
And now, conception shows the world what those potential children en-masse are,
(Who hath amassed that value to purchase and sell en-masse our children?)

“America the Beautiful” Charleston children sang
At graves of unknown Union soldiers buried far from home
Commemorate, consecrate, a conquest of hopes, by hopes
May yet redound from burial mounds, from coast through coast.