History's inscribed with painful regrets,
Time-stamped reminders we'd just soon forget.
Life's changing moments wrought of misery,
Sober atonements to God's apathy.

Consider this sequence of mid-April dates,
A 9-day stretch worth scholarly debates,
A series of occurrences with no common thread,
A collection of tragedies riddled with dead.

April 12, 1861

A war between brothers, a nation divided,
The question of Slavery, many undecided,
A Fort's forced surrender, human dignity fought for,
The Anguished Overture to The American Civil War...

April 12, 1945

Our 32nd President, who the nation adored,
Died while in office, the free world mourned,
The most tenured Chief in U.S. history,
FDR left distinction as his departed legacy ...

April 14, 1865

While our nation was reeling to get back on it's feet,
Abe Lincoln was shot in his Ford's Theater seat,
"Sic Semper Tyrannis", his assailant cried,
"He belongs to the ages", a martyr had died.

April 14, 1912

A ship's maiden voyage, an unsinkable fate,
Hit a runaway iceberg it saw too late.
A Titantic vesseled virgin, high society's newest rave,
Sent 1500 passengers to a hallowed icy grave.

April 15, 1986

Amid Middle Eastern tension and territorial defense,
A Berlin club bombed sparked a dire consequence,
President Regan ordered Libya bombed in retaliation,
60 people died without warning or provocation.

April 16, 2007

On a serene college campus in a rural southern state,
32 people died at the hands of a class-mate,
Virginia Tech hosted a rampaged massacre,
Blacksburg was the site of this shooting disaster.

April 17, 1961

At the Cold War's peak, a secret coup spoiled,
A surprise invasion to take Cuban soil.
President Kennedy's embarrassing political low,
The failed Bay of Pigs and Castro overthrow.

April 18, 1906

A California quake, the west coast torn,
San Andreas faltered in the early morn.
San Francisco shook while most people slept,
Some 3000 died, thousands were bereft.

April 19, 1775

Sovereignty sought, a declaration unfurled,
Red Coats and Minutemen, insults hurled,
A Lexington Common to settle the score,
The start of the American Revolutionary War.

April 19, 1993

A poorly planned siege in a small Texas town,
An Adventist's forged stand on Koreshian ground.
Waco's Davidians, the FBI, ATF,
82 perished, most burned to death.

April 19, 1995

Oklahoma, City, the last place you'd expect,
A rental truck blast, sheered lack of respect,
Alfred P. Murray's face blown to smithereens,
A day care center, the heart-wrenching scenes.

April 20, 1999

Two young gunman arrived at Columbine late,
Their intent was malicious, their motive pure hate.
A rapid fired stroll in armoured disguise,
12 high school kids and a teacher victimized.

************

These world changing dates
 seem random at first glance,
But placed on a timeline they're suddenly enhanced.
I only named 12, those most can relate,
There are many others that fall in these dates.
Maybe it's a coincidence they happened when they did,
But consider their significance, the possibilities unsaid.

Have all world events occured randomly?
Or are we all tokens of God's monopoly?
Can future's be predicted, fates foretold?
Or are we at the mercy of some Devine stranglehold?

Is our future controlled by things in our past?
Can dates be foreseen before calendar's are cast?
How long can we presume that God's mercy will last?

If there's no real purpose to life at all,
Why would we ever need a crystal ball?
Our existance is tenuous, we're at God's beckon call.

Incidents that predispose our fragile subsistence,
Crises presupposed of purposed resistance.
Spurs-of-the-moment lacks of good common sense,
Symbolic faint echoes of life's consequence.


Copyright © July 2009
Kevin Mooney