Vanderbilt Library Open Journals

President Donald Trump has suggested and supported a law, called the RAISE (Reforming American Immigration for a Strong Economy) Act, to allow legal immigration status to those who meet a narrow set of qualifications and accumulate points under those criteria. What is problematic is how few people would meet the criteria wherein a third of the points require large monetary investments, Nobel laureate status, and Olympic medals. In a country predicated on eliminating a meritocracy or system of monetary power, this seems to undermine American values.&nbsp

Lipka, Emily Paige

Owens, Brianna M

MacDonald, Mitchell Noel

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Yarborough, Chelsea Brooke

Judith Casselberry, The Labor of Faith: Gender and Power in Black Apostolic Pentecostalism

Miller, Carlee

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This is a commentary on the similarities between the life of the Condemned Man in Franz Kafka's&nbsp;In the Penal Colony and the life of immigrants in the United States.&nbsp;Image:&nbsp;http://chatterboxtheater.org/files/artwork/inthepenalcolony.jp

Grecu, Simina

Gubbins, Philip Henry

Laundry Room

Meystedt, Jacqueline

Little Things

Knotts, Marian Gabrielle

  
 
 
THE LITTLEST ANGELS 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Marian Knotts 
Vanderbilt University, Peabody College 
 
 
 
  
The Littlest Angels  
 
“The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels, but every time we think we have 
measured our capacity to meet a challenge, we look up and are reminded that that capacity 
may well be limitless.” 
- The West Wing, Jed Bartlet, “20 Hours in America”  
 
 
 
I. December 14, 2012  
 
I imagine the decision when it was made 
was much like a domino tipped 
ever so slightly by the hissing exhale 
that escaped between the pinched lips of someone in pain. 
The teetering bones leaning just the right way, at just the right moment and the effect much the 
same as the aftershocks  
of a supernova. 
Stardust of those moments scattered across the kaleidoscope of the sky. 
At night, I close my eyes and see mammoth giants quiet with resolution circling their young 
as a lone wolf tears flesh to ribbons 
and the vinyl white tile is soaked crimson.  
I hear their cries of anguish, I watch 
as they refuse to move. 
I wonder, how do you stop an exploding man?  
 
 
 
II. April 20, 1999  
 
Twenty turns around the sun 
and yet we have remained stagnant. We are complacent 
in the fight for our lives. When we do square up 
it is as if the strike from the right hook surprises us. Despite the fact that the same move just 
bloodied our nose. The marks have only just turned a faint hue of 
green as the next swatch of purple 
blooms on the line of our jaw. 
We refuse to take a new stance. 
We refuse to learn from countless losses. 
And so we find ourselves 
constantly knocked to the mat 
in a pool of our own blood.  
 
 
 
 
III. Bedtime stories, gone too far  
 
You’re older now, a parent yourself.  
And with each new story 
you pull her closer, 
holding her heart close to yours 
the rhythm of the two beats a constant anchor to keep you tethered to reality  
to the here, and now 
as the darkness does its best to pull you down too.  
And you bite your lip 
so hard you draw a drop of blood, 
as she tilts her chin towards the sky. 
Until the pale blue meets yours and 
with all the seriousness that a seven-year-old could be expected to muster 
she asks,  
“Where did my friends go?”  
 
 
 
IV. A Rainy Day in May, Yesterday  
 
It is raining outside. 
Slowly at first and then an onslaught, 
as if God made the decision that it was best to wash it all away — a second flood; another chance 
to start anew.  
And all you can do is sit 
clutching the pillow to your chest 
and hitting refresh 
to catch the world, or at least their world 
burning down around you, around them 
in real time. 
A thousand miles away you can hear the 
shadows of screams, splintering the sky with an explosion of shards. And you feel this newest 
affront as if it were 
your own. 
As if it were the exploding memories of 
your friends, 
your family, 
scattering to the heavens.  
 
 
 
In Memoriam on April 20, 2019 
 


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The Littlest Angels

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Judith Casselberry, The Labor of Faith: Gender and Power in Black Apostolic Pentecostalism

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Laundry Room

Little Things

The Littlest Angels

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