Death Has Shaken All of Us This Week...

We can only honor the lives of the two policemen who died last night. And we honor the lives of the two young employees of the motorcycle lot who died a few hours earlier. And the others who died this week as well...was it three more? All by gunshot?

But I have no point to make other than to honor their memories. God bless the peacemakers. And death is not the last word.

DEATH be not proud...

The deaths of officers Smith and King weigh especially heavy on all of us. Their jobs protecting us took them into harm's way. And they did not return.

And soonest our best men with thee doe goe...

Why does it always seem to happen to the young, the brave, the good, the giving, the loved? This poem, then, is to honor all those who fell this week. And especially I mean to honor Albuquerque Policemen Smith and King, whose work serving and protecting our neighborhoods took them into this hail of gunfire. The poem is by John Donne (1572-1631).

DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.