Half Mast

Occasion: I wrote this poem on September 19, 1986, while thinking about the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion, obviously several months after the fact.

Many people read from pages,
Of long forgotten lore,
And cry for people of past ages,
And dying men of yore.

We watch our television screens,
As seven people die,
We wonder just what all this means,
And always question why.

It matters not when these men fall,
Today or years gone past,
We honor them both large and small,
With flags flown at half-mast.

But what about the men we see
As we walk by and by,
What kind of tribute will there by,
For the people we watch die?

People are dying every day,
And we're doing nothing fast,
We sit idly by the way,
With no flags at half-mast.