I want an infinitely blank book and the rest of time. ~Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

A wail pierces the quiet of the night;
A man softly singing about yesterdays and goodbyes and forevers doesn't skip a beat.
The heart of a young man skips every beat now.
This is what pain sounds like, I realize,
Heartache so intense it becomes audible.
She is keening,
Weeping,
Screaming,
Her cries a call to him, her fallen brother;
Her cries a call to us, his stumbling community;
Her cries a call to them, his mourning family.
I am staggered by the humanity
And the mortality, and
Saddened by the faces I see.
There are children,
Few of them mine,
But they are all our children.
They are too young,
Too young to wear black,
Too young to know the weight of loss,
Too young to bury a brother.
The grieving father pleads with us, as he has pleaded with his Father,
Let his son's death be not in vain.
Let His son's death be not in vain.

In the light of two hundred candles,
We stand with bowed heads.
The crickets join in lamentation
Accompanying the sounds of stifled sobs, and exhortations
To choose life.

In the street made impassable by a gathering of love,
We stand with each other.
We depart slowly and silently
Because what is there to say?

Balloons set free into the blackness
Skim branches as they rise
Higher and higher to the Magic of the heavens.