#LETTHEMSTAY – a poem

#LETTHEMSTAY

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Through dark and watery passage they arrive

With empty hands, for all that they possess

Is the desperate desire to survive

And the beating heart within their chest.

~

They have not come because they had a choice.

Where else on earth are they supposed to flee?

They have no power, no freedom, no voice.

They come to us like an innocent refugee.

~

But will they find upon their journey’s end

A welcome home? A door open or closed?

Will they meet an enemy or a friend

When our shared humanity is then exposed?

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Sure, this is our home, and this is our life,

And they have arrived uninvited,

But how can we turn our backs to their strife?

We can’t close our eyes once they are sighted.

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Will we insist on our right to turn them away,

Condemning them unto a watery tomb?

Or will we hashtag “let them stay”

For those tiny refugees in the womb?

~

(1492)