Finger-Painted Red Poem by John F. McCullagh

The trees outside their classroom door
so recently were green.
Now they all are bare and brown;
great evil they have seen.

I cannot, will not, speculate
what drove that youth insane:
or why he murdered children
then put a bullet in his brain.

The Season now is dreary;
Christmas greetings go unsaid;
Presents never to be opened
and even Hope seems dead.

A grateful Father hugs his girl,
but innocence has fled..
The classroom is an abattoir:
Finger-painted Red.