Elegy for a Murdered Girl
The hunters were looking for bright plumes,
The twitch of a tail, or an ear.
Instead, under the autumn sky,
Trees arched like gold canopies,
What they found in those woods was you.
They will never kill anything again.
The detective, three kids of his own,
Working twenty hours a day
After you disappeared,
Never exactly admitted he was praying,
Only that he hoped he would find you alive.
The priest, a good man in bad days,
Delivered a sermon on your behalf,
With the mighty fortress,
The horn of our salvation,
The high tower into which you had run
And must be safe.
When already you slept with the stars.
So is there no balm in Gilead?
No physician there?
Why hasn't the health of this particular daughter
Of my people been restored? O! Father!
Will You still just give us a stone?
Yet even in this anguish, I hear Your voice,
Saying: Think of her now not as this shell,
This bone and bit of pink fingernail,
Or the Cinderella fit of her tiny shoe.
But see her as I see her
And as I see you, too –
No beginning, no middle, no end.
Copyright 2007 by the Tipton Poetry Journal.
All rights remain the exclusive property of the individual poet and may not be used without their permission.