Eternity
Now I lay me down to
She sleeps a lot during war, but she does not rest.
She dreams of robots commandeered to annihilate robots
or better to re-educate the powers who snow the naive to believe
that it is acceptable to drop bombs and to kill other people.
Instead of counting sheep, she counts corpses lined up daily,
scenes not broadcast on television news programs.
In the creator's name, we pray
She imagines the faces of those entered into eternal slumber.
For freedom, for liberty and justice for all
She pictures their twisted torn apart bodies--
And their eyes, like those of a deer she saw in shock,
legs sheared off by an eighteen-wheeler, upright on the asphalt.
I pledge allegiance
Its eyes looked calmly into her eyes as she passed by,
life blood flowed outwards and then went limp.
Deliver us from evil, for yours is the kingdom, the glory, the power
She tosses; she turns, falls, forever waking, uneasy.
She sleeps, but there is no rest.
--Kathy Allen