Sunset for Lovelle

It's been a year this weekend since Oakland police officers Mark Dunakin, John Hege, Ervin Romans and Dan Sakai were killed in the line of duty. As I wrote last year, I've known members of the Dunakin family since I was in college. It's hard to explain what the effect of having someone you know being murdered is. But a couple months back on a Friday afternoon I took the dog out to Pt. Isabel for a sunset frolic along the bay, and here is what was produced .

Sunset for Lovelle

As I watch the sun set over the Golden Gate,
marveling as our star rotates,
creating life's elements,
my thoughts are drawn to the seconds between when Lovelle Mixon
decided to point a gun to Mark Dunakin's head
and when he pulled the trigger.

Lovelle:

Did you considered you'd never see our star set again?
In your nuclear rage, at men wearing stars,
did you know you were igniting a super nova
that would counsume your own light?
You wanted escape from a star,
but you created four black holes,
that in shadows of the most serine moments
pull our thoughts back with their gravity.