When the incomprehensible occurs (again) on a Minneapolis street, maybe the only solace can be found in poetry. The creative genius of Amanda Gorman provides gentle salve for my bruised soul.
For Renee Nicole Good
Killed by I.C.E. on January 7, 2026
by Amanda Gorman
They say she is no more,
That there her absence roars,
Blood-blown like a rose.
Iced wheels flinched & froze.
Now, bare riot of candles,
Dark fury of flowers,
Pure howling of hymns.
If for us she arose,
Somewhere, in the pitched deep of our grief,
Crouches our power,
The howl where we begin,
Straining upon the edge of the crooked crater
Of the worst of what we’ve been.
Change is only possible,
& all the greater,
When the labour
& bitter anger of our neighbors
Is moved by the love
& better angels of our nature.
What they call death & void,
We know is breath & voice;
In the end, gorgeously,
Endures our enormity.
You could believe departed to be the dawn
When the blank night has so long stood.
But our bright-fled angels will never be fully gone,
When they forever are so fiercely Good.
Knit+ Librarian 