'The Day Would Be Remembered': Poet Laureate On Capital Shootings

ANNAPOLIS, MD — Annapolis poet laureate Temple Cone wrote about the haunting images of in the aftermath of the mass shootings at the Capital Gazette.

Cone, a professor of English at the United States Naval Academy, shared his prose about the tragic loss of life at The Capital, said city officials, who posted it online. And Friday night Cone read the poem at a vigil at City Dock for those killed. He said he wondered how the day would be remembered: With horror, a sense of connection or something else. And out of those musings came this poem:

The Day Would Be Remembered

The phones screamed all afternoon,
family calling family,
each lover their beloved one.
The blue sky was empty,

save a few clouds that held
no promise of cleansing rain.
For an hour, each heart swelled
with grief for a stranger’s pain,

then sank into silence,
lacking words to shield
a fragile innocence.
When crows at last had wheeled

home to the full-leafed trees,
life crept back in. Children
played baseball, the wheels
of a fallen bike spun

in the breeze, and those who lived
greeted others warmly.
The day would be remembered
as one when family

called family, each lover
their beloved one.
But none would forget, ever,
how the phones screamed all afternoon.

Photo of memorial flowers left outside The Capital, by Patch Editor Elizabeth Janney