ALMA MATER / SOUL MOTHER

by Annie Rachele Lanzillotto

a womb
a place we encourage our youth to strive to go 

to hope to go, 

to set their sites on,
Thayer Street where we promenade our thoughts, 
The SciLi where we fill ourselves with knowledge, 

thousands of hours reading reading everything we can get our hands on,
Soul Mother my heart aches for you
Soul Mother we send our young for your warm embrace,
Soul Mother we fail you, 
Youth we fail you,
Youth full of promise we fail you, 
Fail to protect you from the excesses of rage that is both a byproduct of our society, 
and rage that wells up from within, Rage that is armed.

Oh if it could only be a fair fight again, if only a raging man could have just fists and wits
Oh if only 

But that era is gone
And only one such as Gandhi could put out a meaningful call for all to lay down weapons,
and in the end, 
it was a bullet that got him too
a bullet kills a peacemaker

cursed bullets
cursed designers of bullets
cursed rage that had no better way to explode
cursed testosterone gunpowder rage
cursed whoever politicizes this killing of youth of brilliance of hard-working teenagers striving to carve of this world a better place 
Soul Mother, Alma Mater I ache for you

Annie Rachele Lanzillotto, class of 1986, Brown.