It’s still Monday here, so I’m turning in my read. write. poem. prompt under the wire.

For the Voiceless

“In Darfur, arms are like sticks. They are everywhere. You just need to bend down and pick one up.”
- IBRAHIM HASSAN, a Chadian rebel based in the Darfur region of Sudan. NY Times, April 2008

They still surround you, never making a sound.  Hundreds
of silent memories trail you.  Bend down.  Pick them up.

He says arms litter their landscape, spare limbs found lying
everywhere.   If you want one, just bend down, pick it up.

Dandelions litter your lawn. Strong weeds sown each spring
by silent insistent spores.  You bend down, pick them up.

Language is our choice, a luxury found only in
sentients.  We collect words, bend down to pick them up. 

Number 4001 made a hard choice, wound himself
around a bomb to save his friends.  Bent down, picked it up. 

I prefer animals, their soundless love, to our world’s
angry iterations.  I bend down to pick them up.