Emily Dickinson XVIII: POEM The Book of Martyrs modified in honor of Gloria Guerra Addington's efforts against a nuclear dump; also a H.S. senior who was told she'd lose her deca college scholarship for refusing to recant a petition against a corrupt principal; her teacher, who quit after yrs of successful teaching, retrained ,interviewed 20 times until he was quietly told he'd been blacklisted regionally; to the young Jessica who quit teaching mid year after her dad betrayed a fellow teacher to protect his daughter from corruption; to the Human Resources lady who quit and left her corrupt boss; to the lead-contaminated kids of anapra NM who will always have short anger fuses, and are being yet again knowingly sacrificed to El Paso's wastes from IBWC; to the middle school where when the wind blew from the direction of dump they inexplicably got nose bleeds; to the retired Messita elementary school Principal who got brain cancer after retirement (overheard); to the researcher(s) and attorney(s) sacrificed (losing homes, health, employment) fighting against the grinding machine of unlimited attorneys for the corruption; to all the women in this region who complain of rampant reproductive cancers and said, quote "Asarco should just have dropped a bomb on them"; to the babies born quietly during the 1990's at the county hospital to women who lived along the river -- whose babies died from lack of a liver or a pancreas or a brain; to all the thousands who protested the Sierra Blanca Nuclear dump and so unknowingly idled a smelting illegal radioactive behemoth, too; and to the present "kingdom" of El Paso who remain unaware, or worse knew and held onto a love of money, and failed to help even at the risk of their immortal souls.... this poem is dedicated.

Read, sweet, how others [in the Paso del Norte] strove, Till we are stouter [old]; What they renounced [gave up while others kept], Till we are less afraid [could rest a little easier from the good got done]; How many times they bore The faithful witness, Till we [the community, the children] are helped, As if a kingdom cared! [they don't] Read then of faith That shone above the fagot [bundle of iron under high melting heat]; Clear strains of hymn The river could not drown; Brave names of men And celestial women, Passed out of record [forgotten] Into renown [rewards of heaven] !