Wednesday, March 2, 2011

#8: Poem

Invocation
by Robin Morgan
for Isel Rivero
Gunmen attacked a school in northwestern Rwanda last Monday, killing seventeen girls.... The Attack took place after the Hutu gunmen ordered the girls to separate into groups of ethnic Hutu or Tutsi, and the students refused to comply.
--From The New York Times, April 30, 1997

Insane, sadistic gods to whom I offer
only my denial and disgust,
how do we bear witness to each other
when such defiance gleams beyond our trust?

They stupify us, these small, nameless girls
in whose name Love linked arms with her best friend.
Courage skulks shamed before these little skulls
rotting on the grassy school playground.

Let me be worthy of such children, slain
where they stand, who in the face of dying, cling.
Let me be equal to my small, sufficient pain
and in the broken teeth of horror, sing.

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