Who Are These People?

Rag dolls by definition

Are symbols of submission

A bully’s push over

A child’s playmate

Lying abandoned

In a debris of rubble

Unable to fly

Like a bird in the sky

Or die like her playmate

Earthly bound

Casualty of war

Where bullies don’t care

Like so many before

In mankind’s historical lore

About the human paradox

Of inexplicable atrocities

By hordes of people

Conscripted and complicit

In ideological rationalization

Are justified in the name of

Nationalism, religiosity

Tribalism, racial supremacy

In a tragic allegory

Of endless struggle

Between Heaven’s salvation

And Hell’s damnation

Not a distinction of location

Nor state of being or mind

But in ephemeral hearts

Of both rag dolls and bullies

 

This article appears in April 22, 2022.