BookLovers: On Uvalde, Blowin’ in the Wind

Yes, an’ how many times must the cannonballs fly before they’re forever banned?

The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind.

I was going to write this week’s column, as I do every year near his birthday, in tribute to Bob Dylan.

But then, on Dylan’s birthday, there was a Texas massacre. Still, there’s one Dylan line I can’t get out of my head.

Because 19 little kids and two teachers are dead. And how many times must the cannonballs fly before they are forever banned?

Only in this country could that answer still be blowin’ in the wind.

We will learn nothing from this. That’s the sad truth.

Because Buffalo taught us nothing because San Bernardino taught us nothing because El Paso taught us nothing because Las Vegas taught us nothing because Orlando taught us nothing because Parkland taught us nothing because Dayton taught us nothing because Atlanta taught us nothing because Virginia Tech taught us nothing because Sandy Hook taught us nothing because Columbine taught us nothing.

(The answer is blowin’ in the wind.)

And those Columbine kids should be 40 today. And the Sandy Hook kids should be getting their drivers’ licenses. But then again, you could get shot up just grocery shopping.

(The answer is blowin’ in the wind.)

You read the statistics on how many school shootings we’ve had since Columbine, how many mass shootings in general, and it’s mind-boggling. That 27 school shootings have already happened in 2022, according to Education Week. That more than 311,000 kids have experienced gun violence since Columbine, according to the Washington Post, and there were some 42 school shootings in 2021.

That can’t be right, you think. And then you stop and think and realize: Yes. Yes, it could.

(The answer is blowin’ in the wind.)

When horrible things happen, first we look outside ourselves and then we look inside, and then we look to words. Poets and writers who served as prisms, capturing pain in a carefully broken light.

This week I thought of Dylan’s words.

He wrote, “Blowin’ in the Wind” when he was 21 years old.

He turned 81 this week.

There was a massacre on his birthday.

And that near-60-year-old song still hits home. That refrain still lingers in my ears:

How many times must a man lookup

Before he can see the sky?

Yes, ’n’ how many ears must one man have

Before he can hear people cry?

Yes, ’n’ how many deaths will it take till he knows

That too many people have died?

The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind

The answer is blowin’ in the wind.

Lauren Daley is a freelance writer. She tweets @laurendaley1. Read more at https://www.facebook.com/daley.writer.

This article originally appeared on Standard-Times: BookLovers: On Uvalde, Blowin’ in the Wind