A Poem in Memory of the Kent State Tragedy of May 4, 1970

Old Math: The Calculus of May 4, 1970

Neil Young’s song still dances around my brain

Forty years after that fateful Monday, May 4^th, 1970:

“Four dead in O-hi-o. Four dead in O-hi-o.”

The math is both hard and simple:

4^th day of the fifth month of the 1970^th year of the Lord.

77 Guardsmen with fixed bayonets advance toward the crowd.

13-second fusillade;

67 shots fired, many into the ground or into the air;

4 dead in Ohio: Jeffrey Miller. Allison Krause. Sandy Scheuer. Bill Schroeder.

Their ages: 20, 19, 20, and 19.

9 wounded in O-hi-o: John Lewis, Thomas Grace, John Cleary,

Alan Canfora, Douglas Wrentmore, James Russell, Robert Stamps.

Dean Kahler permanently paralyzed.

Donald MacKenzie wounded from a distance of 750 feet.

Branded into memory, the image of Mary Ann Vecchio,

Horror on her face, arms extended over the lifeless body of Jeffrey Miller,

Shot through the mouth:

John Filo’s Pulitzer winning photo

Developed inside every young American’s brain.

58,000 Americans dead in the Vietnam War;

10 times that many wounded; how many with deep psychic injury?

Uncountable millions of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians.

A couple hundred million Americans torn up in anguish,

Conflicted, confused—a confusion that can never be resolved.

The old chant continues:

“Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,

We’re finally on our own,

This summer I hear the drumming,

Four dead in Ohio.

Four dead in Ohio.”

                              Robert M. Coughlin

                                    Kirtland, Ohio

                                    May 4, 2010