They sent us home from school
They didn’t know that he was dead
My mom answered the door
They shot the President I said
She heard what I was saying
But she didn’t understand it
I might as well have said
Hey Mom, the Martians landed
We watched the moving pictures
As we bathed in cathode rays
Staring at the TV set
We didn’t turn off for days
I was just a kid
And still the future beckoned
But the world’s been very different
Since November 22nd
The sixties were a struggle
And we began to feel
We’d opened up a wound
And it might never heal
We had to fear the bomb
And now we feared the bullet
One madman with a trigger
And the willingness to pull it
It’s a horror to imagine
That there isn’t any plan
That the world can change direction
In a second—and it can
But time has subtle powers
And diminishes the threat
What the young haven’t experienced
The old tend to forget
We nearly were transported
To where we were before
The ugly TV image
And the child at the door
Grieve deeply for the fallen
Pray, but be prepared
It wasn’t just a person
But a country that was spared
