Thirty-two years
\nSix months
\nTwelve days
\nWe waited
\nTo say our last farewell<\/p>\n
Family
\nFriends
\nComrades in peace
\nAll fallen before their time<\/p>\n
As survivors
\nWe gathered together
\nTo honor
\nThose who once shared our vision<\/p>\n
Nine hundred eighteen
\nNames engraved
\nOn these four
\nSacred stones
\nLaid flat on the ground<\/p>\n
We fell to our knees
\nNot necessarily in prayer
\n(Though some did)
\nMade crayon rubbings
\nOn torn sheets of paper
\nTo capture the precious moment
\nBefore it too slipped into memory<\/p>\n
With vaguely familiar faces
\nWorn by time and grief
\nWe reached out to one another
\nReconnected
\nHugged, cried and laughed
\nIn this strange and bittersweet
\nHomecoming<\/p>\n
Now
\nFor as long as these stones
\nMay last on earth
\nThese fallen heroes
\nWill be remembered
\nNever to be
\nForgotten<\/p>\n
(Teri Buford O\u2019Shea was a frequent contributor to <\/em>the jonestown report. Her other poems in this edition include Deitrick<\/a><\/em> and I Do Not Love You<\/a>. Information about her recently-published book <\/em>Jonestown Lullaby appears here<\/a>. Her previous writings appear here<\/a>.<\/em>)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Thirty-two years Six months Twelve days We waited To say our last farewell Family Friends Comrades in peace All fallen before their time As survivors We gathered together To honor Those who once shared our vision Nine hundred eighteen Names engraved On these four Sacred stones Laid flat on the ground We fell to our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"parent":29506,"menu_order":10,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-29436","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29436"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":121327,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29436\/revisions\/121327"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}