Children at the Border

Let them come

There are great holes

In the heart of America

Maybe the children can fill them

Let them come

Their mothers and fathers and

Sisters and brothers

Maybe they can clear

Our ears with the music

Of their languages not yet dead

Let them come

These strangers

Let them come and be our

Neighbors, smiling, much less

Strange to us than those

Estranged ones who are our

Neighbors now

Let them come

Fleeing the violence

We have caused

Fleeing the droughts

We have caused

Fleeing the men

Armed to the teeth

With the weapons we sold

To their sharpened teeth

Let them come

Those who have nothing

Left to lose

These especially we need

We who think we will lose it all

If we opened our arms

But a little

We who came from elsewhere

Took what wasn’t ours to take

Then shut the door behind us

Let them come

Maybe they can teach us

To dance and share again

Maybe they will

Reteach us the American dream

Of radical equality and radical courage

Those qualities which made

Whatever good we might

Once have had

Let them come

Those who we try

To fence away from us

Maybe they will free us

From the prison we have built

Around ourselves

To protect us from

The people we stole from

And the people

We murderously taught

To hate us

Let them come

No, -more than that-

Go out and get them

The ones made homeless

By our imperial machinations

Give them a home

Amongst us

That they may teach us

What home can be

We who have become

Refugees from the reality

Of the earth as it is

Of the earth as we have

Done to it

Of the earth itself

Of each other

We who have built

A fortress to protect

Our exceptional loneliness

An armed camp

But one that cannot survive

The onslaughts

Of the emptiness

Within

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed herein are solely those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Department of State or the U.S. Government.