Dear World, dear Earth,
dear La Ixchel,
dear Sacred Mockingbird,
                                                           January 2013
You must not kill a 
Sacred Mockingbird
because they sing 
for us sun to moon

to sun, learning up
to 200 songs in their 
life time, they sing
their tiny hearts out

for us till they cease
to fly the wind into
sunlight, moonlight, they
mark our moments, our

days, our dreams,
fresh songs, memorized
pulsing hearts, they
ask for nothing, only

sun, moon, wind, berries,
to fly sun to moon to
sun, learning songs, to
simply live, within our

dreams, our human
memory, their berry
rich songs, up to
200 in a life time.

I wonder, oh I wonder,
what songs, their voices,
each voice, each dream,
each fully lived life,

their 200 songs ripened,
each one had to sing
sun to moon to sun, their
flight cut short, each

one...
Charlotte Bacon, 6 years old
Daniel Borden, 7 years old
Olivia Engel, 6 years old
Josephine Gay, 7 years old
Ana M. Marquez- Greene, 6 years old
Dylan Hockley, 6 years old
Madeline F. Hsu, 6 years old
Catherine V. Hubbard, 6 years old
Chase Howalski, 7 years old
Jesse Lewis, 6 years old
James Mattioli, 6 years old
Grace McDonnell, 7 years old
Emilie Parker, 6 years old
Jack Pinto, 6 years old
Noah Pozner, 6 years old
Caroline Previdi, 6 years old
Jessica Rekos, 6 years old
Avielle Richman, 6  years old
Benjamin Wheeler, 6 years old
Allison N. Wyatt, 6 years old

In the beautiful film, To Kill A
Mockingbird, Scout says, about 
harming another, "It's like killing a
mockingbird, isn't it?"


**To the twenty little birds killed in
Newton, Connecticut, and the parents
who will not hear their so sweet, ripened
songs.

Alma Luz Villanueva 

San Miguel de Allende, Mexico