"A Very Brief Reflection on Omagh" - (Dedicated to Lasting Peace in Ireland) No words - how many of us have said that? No words for what happened in Omagh at 10 minutes past three on the Feast Day of the Assumption, 1998. The silence, others have said. The eerie, awful split-second of silence after Saturday's blast - then the screaming. In Buncrana children weep. In Omagh, people gather to pray together. In Madrid, a mother turns her face away from the sight of her son's coffin. The harvest fields of Mid-Ulster are still. It is four months since Good Friday - since the signing of the agreement that we hoped would mean the end to all of this. "Never again," we vowed, "Never again," we voted. Then the burning of the three Quinn boys, then the murder of Belfast father Andrew Kearney beside his new-born baby. Then this. Four months since Good Friday...Augher, Clogher, Drum... Four months since good Friday... Omagh, Buncrana, Madrid... Good Friday, Bloody Saturday. When will Sunday come? Sunday - the day of Resurrection. The slab rolled back forever from the crucified bodies of the people we love. On Omagh Bridge an RUC man stands holding a crown of thorns. No words. Yet, months ago, with a friend, 12-year-old Sean McLaughlin found words, wrote innocently, inspired, hopeful. "Orange and green, it doesn't matter, United now, don't shatter our dream, Scatter the seeds of peace over our land, So we can travel hand in hand, Across the bridge of hope." His life, his dream, was shattered. "I still believe in God, I still believe in an afterlife," say the parents of the murdered children. "Orange and green - it doesn't matter - united now." 28 people united - in death. We pray as we lay them to rest - "scatter the seeds of peace." 18 dead - so many injured, marred, marked, desolate. Omagh joining the unholy litany of places - names remembered for horror. On Saturday - not knowing what had happened - I watched a pageant commemorating 1798 and that part of the ongoing, universal struggle for liberty and equality. One of those taking part gave me a hand-out, one of the many pithy, literary extracts they were distributing for their audience to reflect upon. Mine was written by Father Michael MacGreal, SJ - it simply said: Violence inevitably leads to the peace of the graveyard." Let there be an end now to that kind of peace. We seek for words. We must find words, as the peacemakers did - words wrought from pain and conflict and other dark days and nights. Words to buttress that bridge of hope - that bridge out of darkness, into the tentative light of dawn." -- Vincent Woods, author/poet (Note, Omagh is in Co. Tyrone).