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.
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