I use a trick to teach students

how to avoid passive voice.
Circle the verbs.

Imagine inserting “by zombies”

after each one.
Have the words been claimed

by the flesh-hungry undead?

If so, passive voice.
I wonder if these

sixth graders will recollect,

on summer vacation,

as they stretch their legs

on the way home

from Yellowstone or Yosemite

and the byway’s historical marker

beckons them to the

site of an Indian village —
Where trouble was brewing.

Where, after further hostilities, the army was directed to enter.

Where the village was razed after the skirmish occurred.

Where most were women and children.
Riveted bramble of passive verbs

etched in wood —

stripped hands

breaking up from the dry ground

to pinch the meat

of their young red tongues.