AND THE HEAVENS WEPT

PART I - THE ASSASSINATION

By Thurman W. Adams

©2002. Thurman W. Adams

On November twenty-first, nineteen hundred and sixty-three,
the President of the United States of America flew to Texas; to become part of the darkest chapters in our history. 
He was the first President of the United States of America to the twentieth century to be born, 
and he held steadfast through this all though his body, from war, was painfully worn. 
He and his regal First Lady boarded Air Force One
and flew to a land divided by hatred, prejudice and scorn.
On Friday, November twenty-second, he entered Dallas, Texas, a town with many citizens, deadly deranged.
He was told not to worry, for he was very safe, in peaceful Dallas, so hospitable, down home on the range. 
In the open top limousine was our President, his Lady, along with the Governor of Texas and his wife,
they would ride into one of the darkest chapters of American history, by witnessing the sacrifice of the President's life. 
Dallas was no ordinary American city; some of its citizens, reeking with vile hate, 
but John Fitzgerald Kennedy did not shirk his duty, it being his fate.
How is it, a city like Dallas can turn into something straight from hell, 
and nurture assassins, so evil and able to shoot so very well?
Lee Harvey Oswald might have pulled the trigger, but Dallas produced the crime.
The rest of the world watched and listened in horror and revulsion, but Dallas was smug in its prime. 
How could some, in this American city, be totally in league with the devil,
saying it wasn't their fault, pointing their fingers at a young man with a dfle on a building's sixth floor level? 
The only thing de-scent men could do was to gather their fallen leader and his stoic wife, 
for she wore her red badge of courage, her husband's crimson blood of life.
Aboard Air Force One, they fled back Northeast, far away from that murderous city in the Lone Star State,
for some in Dallas had made it America's capital of bigotry and hate.
John Kennedy was so far better than these back West, and to leave a drop of his blood there, was a sin. 
As the world watched in disgust, pity, amazement and disbelief, there was now no way we could win.
Air Force One arrived back in the dark gloom of Andrews Field, in Washington, a hearse out of the black sky, 
as far away as possible from that heinous place President John F. Kennedy had to die.
Our nation's and the world's hearts broke when we saw Jacqueline Kennedy departing the plane, broken but bold, 
wearing that pink dress with her husband's and our nation's martyr's dark red blood, a badge of honor, so cold. 
And the heartbroken angels in heaven could no longer withstand the pain, which they themselves had kept, 
and the stars fell from the sky and the heavens wept.

FORWARD TO AND THE HEAVENS WEPT - PART 2