Dangerous People

They are not all what we suppose;
the weak, also, are a danger.
Every breach in Paradise is proof of them,
of the small, green-hearted.
With unrelenting loss the pawns
and playthings of the strong deplete Creation;
the herded indefensible, the dispossessed.
We know them. And without pity
we are broken by them. What, in Heaven,
keeps silent when the weak are born? Shame
swaggers out of their mothers, and sometimes,
unwilling to lift the blade
of even a single cry against the night, they fall
back into the unkept promise. And their graves,
ambushed by the legioned mission of the grass,
cannot withstand the edge of their memory,
which opens up our own fists,
as if we were the powerless,
as if we were the ones
who had never fought.

From "In Memoriam: Everybody" Copyright © 1995, Emily Newland.
Special thanks to Dodie Obryan for contributing this piece, dedicating it to Joshua.