Our Hearts Go Out

To the relatives, friends and loved ones

of the family that perished in a house fire

to the random pedestrian victim of a drive-by shooting

to the school band whose bus flew off a high bridge

to the manic man who fell or jumped beneath the train

to the pilgrims packed on a boat that sank at sea

to the refugee children starved in tents and field hospitals

to the laborer falling twenty stories from a defective platform

to the people in a chair or on a bed  whose hearts stopped

and all to the incalculable numbers lost every waking day.

Of course they do,

those tender hearts of ours.

But they are seldom gone for long

because those lost souls are for us

no more than items in the news.

Our hearts do indeed go out

to console those afflicted with grief.

But they mostly want to find happiness

until that time, sudden or prolonged,

when, finally, they themselves go out.