The people who put the cross up by the fountain think we ought to feel guilty.
I'm not so sure.
The librarian thinks we ought to be ashamed of ourselves;
I suppose we ought to be.
It's easy to forget,
And that's just what is wanted:
Forgetting
About the violence
And the carelessness
And the forgetting.
Is there value in shame
If it's just for shame's sake?
We'd have to act,
I would think,
Out of shame
Or hope
Or a sense of Justice.
Maybe there's more sense in that
Even if nothing comes of it.