A Parting Toast

Lush jungle foliage surrounding the village,
a complex of white buildings and tents
where people dressed in ivory garb
came and went with tranquil faces.

Gathering at their noon repast,
clusters of hundreds singing hymns
before their leader,
hiding his drug addiction
behind his dark shades
while sitting on his wooden throne.

Their ears clung to each sentence he spoke
they were for them salvation and freedom,
the epitome of life in their minds.

Then his honeyed sayings uttered that command,
pass the juice for a final parting toast,
soon they would march together,
souls on their way to glory,
one sip the cyanide drink
before they all lied down to forever sleep.

Tears streamed down parents cheeks
as they gave the lethal potent to their children,
screams of those who panicked
before trying to escape into the bushes,
gunned down mercilessly by the leader’s guards.

Afterwards they too consumed that deadly fluid,
nine hundred lives strewn in a macabre parting to life,
some faces etched in that final horror by rigor mortis
when discovered later by officials
arriving in search of missing congressman
that had been murdered earlier.

Decaying corpses under the sun
saying so long from Jonestown cult compound
leaving behind a grisly goodbye,
relatives would mourn in stunned disbelief.