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Rachel
by Leona Heitsch


That Rachel should weep for her children is prophesy,
but there is also the mirror image.
Mothers weep for Rachel, and for the children
she will not bear, 
as do fathers in despair.
Some of us lie awake nights, thinking about
this Rachel whose courage 
binds us to her memory,
looking out the windows at Mars, 
the distant stars,
and the occasional night flight, 
blinking toward
one of the earth's many destinations.
We exhale hope toward the light,
that injustice will cease,
that every living soul who travels through
an earth night may wake 
to a sunrise that brings
conciliation to the planet's peoples.

The dream that was Rachel's will not die.
Would it be any harder to achieve that dream
than flying through the darkness in the belly
of a flashing, roaring metal fish, 
and landing safely
when and where we planned?

Our names are interchangeable, and
all faces in the mirrors are our own.

 


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