All this terrible talk about smuggling children into the US, rapists, murders, diseased seems to me to miss the point. This country, on its better days has always made room for those who come here seeking asylum. Fleeing what we cannot even imagine. I pray that American will become, once again America the Beautiful. We do not make a nation great with hatred and division and causing chaos into the lives of desperate people.
Warsan Shire captures this feeling in her powerful poem, Home. Here are some of the stanzas:
"no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city running as well"
+ + +
"you have to understand
that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land
no one burns their palms
under trains
beneath carriages
no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck
feeding on newspaper unless the miles traveled
means something more than journey.
no one crawls under fences
no one wants to be beaten
pitied
no one chooses refugee camps
or strip searches where your
body is aching
or prison,
because prison is safer than a city of fire
and one prison guard
in the night
is better than a truckload
of men who look like your father
no one could take it
no one could stomach it
no one skin would be tough enough..."
--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com
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