Shoot Me
The oldest girl, in the white clapboard schoolhouse, said
"shoot me, just let the others go."
Charles Carl Roberts the Fourth did so,
but shot the other little girls, like my daughters, anyways.
And then himself.
The red lights flashed through the night,
as more little girls expired,
under the flourescent clinical sophistication eschewed by their fathers.
Their hearts slowed, bearing away the hot sun on the curried grass,
the timothy waving on the Lancaster downs,
the minnows caught in the cold silver, free for the taking,
and the ubiquitous Amish trampolines purchased from WalMart.
These, too, evaporated,
uncontained by the light bulbs, the diodes
and many petroleum products of English manufacture.
Little Amish girls, Anabaptist pacifists who had that day
run laughing along the unkempt fence rows.
"Shoot me," the oldest freckled one said,
who might have squeezed milk from the Holstein teat that day at 4:30 am,
and shoveled the steaming sileage into the trough,
or slopped the sow and laughed at the barbarian piglets,
or spiraled hard corn in an Amish pirouette, skittering the chickens
(serves them right, ill-mooded peevish hens
who are all opinion but no thought):
she walked to school today,
passed by her sister and friends on the run,
she needed more time to think, starting to think,
about the beardless, red-faced strawhatted taciturn
wide-cheekboned blue-eyed Jacob,
and goosefleshed chills raced down her spine, smiling in blush.
"Shoot me ... let the others go free,"
said she to the milk man gone mad.
He did, along with the others,
having sent Jacob and the teachers and the boys outside first,
so it would just be Charles Carl Roberts the Fourth and the girls,
who would all die for the sake of an unsettled feeling
in stupidity,
bad catechism.
Shoot me.
He did.
The Amish, saved thank God from the press of the Press
and those garish lights of television Jakob Amman warned us about,
prayed to God
in the house by the dead.
They sang an hymn, and left for Gethsemane.
Today,
just four miles from the white clapboard school,
where the demons had their way,
in a Methodist field of green,
they lay him down Charles Carl Roberts the Fourth.
His wife was there, and his children,
and about seventy five mourned him.
Of
these,
thirty three
were
Amish.
So for all you Christians who are mad about missing funds,
and look to tar and feather ...
for all you Christians who look for others to repent,
and want self-flagellation and contrition
and want them to show they're really sorry ...
for all you Christians who can't forgive and forget
because truth be told you just love to remember,
who entertain yourselves with the thought of sinners worse than you
so you have someone to be better than ...
for all you Christians who read mail lists
and cannot wait for the newest data
to come out of audits and prosecutions, and committee meetings ...
who make anonymous calls and write anonymous letters
and circulate internet opinions on forums and crankly web sites ...
First of all, I'd like you to slow down a bit
because I'm one of those who take care of the sinners
God is chastising through your good offices.
I'm tired, and I've run out of bandages and salve.
Take a break from your lashing,
it must be hot sweaty work.
Aren't you tired, too?
Walk out to the field,
and watch the thirty three.
Amish.
The fathers,
mothers,
and brothers.
Of the little girls.
Of the sister,
Anabaptist, pacifist,
who would never kiss Jacob,
who said,
"Shoot me,"
so that others might live.
The other girls didn't live.
But I did.
And so did you.