From School To Graveyard. Poem by Bernedita Rosinha Pinto

How can mercy be blind?
how can children think of self-protection?
how can their innocence be put to test?
how could men forget that it was just a school
and not a battle ground?
No thoughts, no fears, no tears
no enemies, no weapons on their lesson-plans,
only pens, books and schoolbags they carried.
as all friends clustered to talk
of exams and of cricket games;
and just when days were closing the year
a new unknown chapter was unfolding-
death assignment- a massacre
as gunfire engulfed their classrooms….
they assembled together in obedience of fear
only to be shot and lose lives together;
how will the sun rise tomorrow
without the sound of that episode
ringing in the ears of the other students?
how will the bus leave at noon
when 132 lives won't be boarding it?
how will mothers and fathers
eat their lunch without grieving?
how will brothers and sisters fall asleep
when they find one among them missing?
Mercy, how could you close your eyes
so tightly and make the children watch
their teachers get burnt alive
while they themselves died by gunshots?
how could pity vanish from those hearts that kill
who once were themselves children, if not students;
did they not outlive their childhood?
had they any gains in these deaths of the innocents
whom they sent from school to the graveyard?
Mercy O' Mercy, how blind could you be?