Nearly ten years earlier than that, when I eneterd the graduate program at Kent State University (early 1990s,) I naturally assumed this would be the prevailing wind there, concerning the shootings of thirteen students there ( four deaths) in 1970, during a Vietnam War protest.

Perhaps, I thought, there’s a plaque inside-for we dare not forget-and so I was alone with my thoughts.

Instead, I found a lonely building locked up tight for summer, surrounded by dried, pale grass of the drought season, and not a single living soul. I happened to be in the Littleton area, and I meant to visit whatever memorial had been erected to the thirteen shooting victims from 1999.

These were among my reflections when, twenty years ago, I stood outside Columbine High School on a hot August day. But over the years, I’ve come to see that this was what the occasion called for, amidst what X later clarified as “a climate of hate.” Because when you sow violence abroad and at home, as America does, it should be no shock when you, in turn, reap it.

Clotho's Loom by Shawn StJean