Ready the Mind

It is hard to speak in the aftermath of great harm. In Newtown, Conn., where the dead are not yet buried, songs, silence, embraces, candles— these matter. Lots of words don’t. Politicians are mostly awkward with real speech and real feeling, yet they are given the microphones. Over and over, they stutter the word awful tragedy, as if saying it could soothe the ravening beast. It does not.