The sun shone on freshly pressed Shirley Temple curls

Seated side by side in the pews

Swinging legs, lace hose, black patent leather shoes

Adorned with Momma's pearls, adorned with Momma's pearls

Preadolescent buds full of biscuits, bacon and syrup,

Perhaps, grits, eggs and a spot of coffee, mostly milk and cream

Angelic, beautiful lil black girls full of hope, full of dreams

 

Holding onto a nickel waiting for Teacher

Holding onto a dime passing the time

After Sunday morning lessons, candy and pop at the local store

Lil girls, you know the typeàmakes any parent beam,

the kind that would mind, taught to be gentle and good

Teacher's pets, the lights of the neighborhood

 

Sweetly secure, they tell a joke, the type that makes

young girls giggle, bonding four friends for life

Each present when the other becomes a bride

Each becoming godmother/aunt to the other's bundles of pride

Oh, to be denied! Oh, to be denied!  

 

Suddenly a noise, innocently, young brows raise.

"What was that?"

"Did you hear that?"

 "I'm not sure, wait"

"Probably them old dumb boys playing with their toys"

Fate as a city explodes in noise; a nation is racked with pain

Four lil girls dreams are taken, families forever shaken.

At Sixteenth and Never a mother screams all night

Since her baby's been gone, she's never been quite right

Terror knows no shame, terror has no name

Terror is the game borne of madman's minds

when a hatred that insults the Divine manifests.

Mournfully, children are clothed in shroud dress.