ASTONISHING THE ENEMY

"And I will bring the land into desolation; and your enemies that dwell therein shall be astonished at it."

- Leviticus, 26: 32

About Mr. X., we need not be too kind.
He was never one of us, but rather
Odd, the way he urged we keep an open mind
About things we'd already made our minds up on.

He seemed inclined to constantly upset
Our apple carts, not so much by anything
He said as by the way he'd sit and fret
About our doing nothing about suffering.

We never tired of explaining how
We had our lives and were content to fill
Our places in the Grand Design-or how
The world went on and on and men would spill,

From time to time, innocent blood, or
How this figured in the Great Necessity,
Was inexplicable, taken for
Granted, part of our preferred reality.

Mr. X. grew gloomier, began to quote
Biblical text about loving neighbors.
Our holy seers advised him not to note
Inconsistencies in the human heart.

I do not know when we began to perceive
Mr. X. was an alien being;
Or when, one by one, we came to believe,
For the good of all, he must be deleted.

It is ever so much more pleasant now
Without that vague malaise overhanging
Our transactions; we barely remember how
His sad expression made us all uneasy.