The Saturday poem in September - we are back ! Refugee poetry
We are back a week later than scheduled but hopefully will now be here throughout September now.
We have the pleasure later in the month of a returning guest column from mylodon and a first guest column from Canada, thanks to kittycallum so look out for those shortly:)
This weeks poem was originally scheduled to be something else but events wholly gripping our thoughts and feelings in Europe concerning our response - or lack of it = to the refugee crisis on all our borders sent me looking for something more immediate.
I found several but in the end chose this one. It is by Patrick Purnell SJ ,a Jesuit priest born in Cardiff who died earlier this year in his 90's. He came to writing poetry late and really began writing poetry in a serious way in retirement. Since 2007 he had several books published.
This poem is entitled simply Refugees = and indeed the fact that it could describe almost any group of refugees says a great deal. That it is so universal it shows how the world never really learns..
Refugees
Stealthily, we moved from the edges,
Drawn by dreams of plenitude,
Leaving our homes at the margins
Of the deserted flatlands,
Where nothing grows
And what we had of wheels and cogs
Grow rust and harbour cobwebs.
It was fear that urged us on,
Hacking at our hearts,
Fear of the demented power,
That fed upon its own illusions
And cut the naval string
Which bound us to our Tribal Story.
We were stripped at gunpoint
At the precise point of intersection
Between what passed as frontier of the
Nations.
We carry nothing with us
But the golden memories
Of a love that had once
Bound us together as a people,
The incense of a gifted race
Which had ministered a fruitful land for a thousand years
And we carry, like a sacrament,
The myrrh of our Nation’s woundedness
In which is mixed the wisdom of our ancestors.
This is who we are.
These are our gifts,
As we stand before your walls
And if this is not enough
To gain entry to your land,
Let the sun come down
Upon our dry bones
And the moon carve us a grave.
We have the pleasure later in the month of a returning guest column from mylodon and a first guest column from Canada, thanks to kittycallum so look out for those shortly:)
This weeks poem was originally scheduled to be something else but events wholly gripping our thoughts and feelings in Europe concerning our response - or lack of it = to the refugee crisis on all our borders sent me looking for something more immediate.
I found several but in the end chose this one. It is by Patrick Purnell SJ ,a Jesuit priest born in Cardiff who died earlier this year in his 90's. He came to writing poetry late and really began writing poetry in a serious way in retirement. Since 2007 he had several books published.
This poem is entitled simply Refugees = and indeed the fact that it could describe almost any group of refugees says a great deal. That it is so universal it shows how the world never really learns..
Refugees
Stealthily, we moved from the edges,
Drawn by dreams of plenitude,
Leaving our homes at the margins
Of the deserted flatlands,
Where nothing grows
And what we had of wheels and cogs
Grow rust and harbour cobwebs.
It was fear that urged us on,
Hacking at our hearts,
Fear of the demented power,
That fed upon its own illusions
And cut the naval string
Which bound us to our Tribal Story.
We were stripped at gunpoint
At the precise point of intersection
Between what passed as frontier of the
Nations.
We carry nothing with us
But the golden memories
Of a love that had once
Bound us together as a people,
The incense of a gifted race
Which had ministered a fruitful land for a thousand years
And we carry, like a sacrament,
The myrrh of our Nation’s woundedness
In which is mixed the wisdom of our ancestors.
This is who we are.
These are our gifts,
As we stand before your walls
And if this is not enough
To gain entry to your land,
Let the sun come down
Upon our dry bones
And the moon carve us a grave.