Elegy

Elegy

by Michael Fine

© 2026 by Michael Fine


For Charlie Kirk, a US citizen, born and bred here, shot in the neck with a single bullet from a Mauser Model 98 .30-06 caliper bolt-action rifle with a mounted scope, murdered by Tyler James Robinson, from a roof 142 yards away, on September 10, 2025, in front of thousands of people.  I disagreed with most of what Charlie Kirk said but I treasured his life and his right to say it. Mauser is a German arms company.  
For Renee Nichol Macklin Good, a US citizen, born and bred here, the mother of three children, who was shot three times in the chest, arm, and head, by Jonathan Ross, an agent of  Immigration  and Customs Enforcement, a federal law enforcement agency of the US Department of Homeland Security, the agency responsible for enforcing  US immigration and customs laws. She was shot three times at 9:37 AM Central Time on January 7, 2026 by what was likely a Sig Sauer P320 or a Glock 19, the two weapons routinely issued to ICE agents, and made by companies of Austrian or German-Swiss origin. Murdered.

The coyotes howl in the woods at midnight after the moon rises. Riotous, chaotic, blood-thirsty howling.  They have run down a yearling fawn and are ripping her to shreds.  We’ll find the bleached white skull, the ribs, pelvic bones and the vertebrae in springtime, laying under the trunk of a dead old-growth oak.

Renee Good and her wife Rebecca may have been part of a citizen’s watch group, or may have participated on their own, warning undocumented people about the presence of ICE in that part of Minneapolis. They may have been hoping to slow the movements of ICE.  They were not breaking the law.  ICE was in Minneapolis in large numbers, as part of the Department of Homeland Security’s attempt to deport large numbers of people who may be in the US illegally. (There are between 10 and 14 million people in the US who do not have legal immigrant status.) ICE wasn’t breaking the law either.  They were doing the job the US government has asked them to do.

The sky is holy, thin, and blue at sunset after a snowfall, the horizon pink, mauve, red, and orange, just for a moment, as the moon rises, the moonlight and the setting sun reflected in the snow.  The earth is quiet, for that one moment, hushed, waiting, as if ashamed or afraid, unable to equal the beauty of that setting sun and rising moon.


Words were exchanged between Renee and Rebecca Good and at least two ICE agents, including Jonathan Ross.  Taunts.  Profanities.  Orders, which may have been lawful but also may have been conflicting.


Remember the days when the rivers caught fire, when fish died in the rivers and the rivers stank.  When the air was black.  When the birds disappeared.  When the frogs disappeared.  When pestilence spread and there were corpses on the street.  When people slept in tents on the street. We have seen some of this already.  In our times.  See it now.  And don’t see, both at the same time.


This is an elegy as well for the people gunned down in mass shootings in the last year in the US.  In Minneapolis itself.  In Clay County, Mississippi.  In Salt Lake City, Utah. In Providence, Rhode Island.  In San Joaquin County, California.  In Beaufort County, South Carolina.  In Leland, Mississippi.  In Montgomery, Alabama.  In Grand Blanc Township, Michigan.  In Southport, North Carolina.  In North Codorus Township, Pennsylvania.  In Anaconda, Montana.  In New York City.  In Lexington, Kentucky.  In Chicago, Illinois.  In Tallahassee, Florida.  In Shiloh, Pennsylvania.  And in Washington DC.  Twice. 
 
To say nothing of those murdered or died in battle in the Ukraine, in Gaza, in the West Bank, and in Sidney, Australia, among many other places.  Syria.  Iran. Darfur.  Kordofan.  Myanmar. Nigeria. Too many other places. All in 2025 and early 2026.

We are sacrificing our children to Moloch.  We are giving ourselves over to false beliefs, empty ideas, meaningless politics, in which the few manipulate the hopes and dreams of the many, and drive us to distraction, so we do not see things as they are, and do not see one another at all.

The blessing and the curse.  The blessing is who we become if we stay one people.  The curse is what happens should we fall apart -- the whistling missiles, the fire-bombs, the drones and RPGs and the blood running in the streets, the cows dead in the fields, the apples rotting on the ground and the once green earth parched and black, charred and ash that stinks of burned hair and roasted flesh, instead of red shoots and new lime-green leaves in what used to be springtime.  If we keep falling apart.

There is anger on both sides.  All sides.  Fear.  Lies.  Hatred. Exaggerations.  False beliefs.  Attempts to embarrass or inflame. Always a rush to judgement. Never a pause to listen and learn. Not enough caution or kindness or patience in the presence of the complexity which surrounds us.  

Distracted.  Suckered.  Complicit.  Compliant.  Conforming.  Banal. 

Us.

No modesty, decency, humility, or truth.  No stunned silence.  Not enough forgiveness.  No pause or compassion.  No patience.  Just anger, jealousy, profit, cruelty, and fear.

Snow is falling.  America is failing.
Elegy for Charlie Kirk and Renee Good.
Elegy for us.



North Scituate, Rhode Island and Minneapolis Minnesota.  January 10-20, 2026.








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