Even the Newscaster Cried
(after Omagh)
by Lyle McElderry

I have an image branded on my brain seared through with deep despair. I see a brother enter a church, a youth thrust beyond his years, and under his arm a box, a small white box, where his broken sister lies. "We had a commercial target our warning went astray we apologise to the innocents that our bomb blew up that day" This is the barren land. This is the hollow land. The desert's forty days. The forsaken on the cross. Where is Jehovah now? Will he not smite them down, the shadowmen, the hate full men who have filled our hearts with cries? That god is there to find, in orange halls and black berets in lambeg drums and semtex bombs but where the God of love? He is in the tears, He is in the arms that comfort the inconsolable, He is in the hearts of all who pledge that from vile carnage, only peace must come. 20 August 1998