Out in the valley of sickening sadness
Singing is gone on a wailing cry;
Under the weight of a nation’s madness
A hundred and sixteen children died.
Wait on the edge of an Autumn morning,
See what an avalanche tip has done:
Slipped on a school and it gave no warning –
A hundred and sixteen futures gone.
Present in the class when the bell stopped ringing
Fate has registered a death roll-call;
Remember their names and their voices singing,
Stopped by the power of the moving wall.
People who toiled in the face of danger
Their faces black and their bodies brave;
The Father and the Mother and the total stranger
Digging for love at the children’s grave.
Remember the child at the side of the teacher
Covered in the slurry and the moving earth,
Clutched in his hands is the testament of ages –
A dirty slip of paper showing his birth.
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