Edited by Jim McCrory, Wednesday 13 August 2025 at 11:54
Some bad news came to my ears. I wish it hadn’t. A lady, someone’s wife, someone’s daughter, maybe someone’s mother, was driving home from work, probably thinking of what she might make for dinner, or of the warm cup of tea. She didn’t make it. A boy racer, reckless and impatient, overtook another at the brow of a hill on our quiet country road. There was no chance. No time. No coming back. The lady never made it home. Not that evening, never.
I found myself thinking, almost immediately, of Gwendolyn Brooks’ haunting poem We Real Cool. I’ve read it many times, marvelling at its brevity, its jazz rhythm, its chilling final line:
That line feels different when it finds a home in real life. When it leaves the page and appears in front of you in the broken glass, the stillness of flashing lights, the sobs of neighbours gathered at the hedgerow. It is one thing to read about death: it’s another to smell it on your own road.
Brooks wrote about the bravado of young men, posturing in pool halls, skipping school, staying out late, swaggering in their temporary cool. We know them. We’ve seen them. Not always in pool halls now, but behind tinted windows, in engines tuned to snarl, on roads never meant for speed.
There’s something timeless and tragic about the syndrome: young men daring death, not believing it will ever collect. As if speed were immortality. As if adrenaline were purpose.
And yet—we die soon Brooks wrote. So soon, that a good woman on her way home from work didn’t see it coming. Her life was exchanged for a moment of male bravado. For a second of “I’ll pass him now.” For the ancient, tragic game of I dare you.
It angers me. It grieves me. And it scares me. Because somewhere along the way, we have raised generations of boys who confuse recklessness with strength, who mistake risk for manhood. We have confused loudness for identity. We have let the music of warning be drowned out by the rev of an engine.
But Brooks knew better. With prophetic simplicity, she showed us that behind the swagger is a terrible fragility. These boys who drive late, ne'er straight, tempt fate, know—deep down—that the game doesn’t end well.
When I walked the road that night, I saw the broken fence, the skid marks, the flowers already laid. I prayed for the family.
So many of our problems today come from a denial of death. We pretend it doesn’t exist. We mock it in memes and movies. But death is real, and often, far too soon. The woman who died had likely lived a life of quiet duty. She had gone to work, perhaps tired, perhaps hopeful, but no doubt expecting to be home by tea. She didn’t sign up to be a headline. But she has become one.
Let us not romanticize the rebels who burn out fast and leave ruins behind. Let us not glamorize foolishness just because it’s loud. Let us instead honour the quiet lives, the faithful, the responsible, the ones who go home instead of go fast. Let us remember that dignity neither struts, but walks softly.
Brooks’ poem is only eight lines long. So was the life of this moment. A few seconds. A few choices. An end.
We're Really Cool: A Warning Sign For Parents
Some bad news came to my ears. I wish it hadn’t.
A lady, someone’s wife, someone’s daughter, maybe someone’s mother, was driving home from work, probably thinking of what she might make for dinner, or of the warm cup of tea. She didn’t make it. A boy racer, reckless and impatient, overtook another at the brow of a hill on our quiet country road. There was no chance. No time. No coming back. The lady never made it home. Not that evening, never.
I found myself thinking, almost immediately, of Gwendolyn Brooks’ haunting poem We Real Cool. I’ve read it many times, marvelling at its brevity, its jazz rhythm, its chilling final line:
We
Die soon.
We Real Cool | The Poetry Foundation
That line feels different when it finds a home in real life. When it leaves the page and appears in front of you in the broken glass, the stillness of flashing lights, the sobs of neighbours gathered at the hedgerow. It is one thing to read about death: it’s another to smell it on your own road.
Brooks wrote about the bravado of young men, posturing in pool halls, skipping school, staying out late, swaggering in their temporary cool. We know them. We’ve seen them. Not always in pool halls now, but behind tinted windows, in engines tuned to snarl, on roads never meant for speed.
There’s something timeless and tragic about the syndrome: young men daring death, not believing it will ever collect. As if speed were immortality. As if adrenaline were purpose.
And yet—we die soon Brooks wrote.
So soon, that a good woman on her way home from work didn’t see it coming. Her life was exchanged for a moment of male bravado. For a second of “I’ll pass him now.” For the ancient, tragic game of I dare you.
It angers me. It grieves me. And it scares me. Because somewhere along the way, we have raised generations of boys who confuse recklessness with strength, who mistake risk for manhood. We have confused loudness for identity. We have let the music of warning be drowned out by the rev of an engine.
But Brooks knew better. With prophetic simplicity, she showed us that behind the swagger is a terrible fragility. These boys who drive late, ne'er straight, tempt fate, know—deep down—that the game doesn’t end well.
When I walked the road that night, I saw the broken fence, the skid marks, the flowers already laid. I prayed for the family.
So many of our problems today come from a denial of death. We pretend it doesn’t exist. We mock it in memes and movies. But death is real, and often, far too soon. The woman who died had likely lived a life of quiet duty. She had gone to work, perhaps tired, perhaps hopeful, but no doubt expecting to be home by tea. She didn’t sign up to be a headline. But she has become one.
Let us not romanticize the rebels who burn out fast and leave ruins behind. Let us not glamorize foolishness just because it’s loud. Let us instead honour the quiet lives, the faithful, the responsible, the ones who go home instead of go fast. Let us remember that dignity neither struts, but walks softly.
Brooks’ poem is only eight lines long. So was the life of this moment. A few seconds. A few choices. An end.
And for all of us, a reminder.