What Have We Become

Parching heat
Sun beating down
Tired feet
No sign of a town
...
Waves rolling endlessly
Their only escape the sea
Bitter salt scathes their wounds,
Bitter tears spill as the surf pounds...
...
Fear drives them,
Wars divide them -
Drugs, Religion, Greed
Wear down their hope

Free at last
They have arrived
On our shores ~
They have survived

What horrors await
They could not know;
Rejected, hungry,
They feel hated and low

Our land is immense,
Our harvests bountiful
But we are afraid
They’ll take what’s plentiful

How is it then
That we deserve
More than they?
...And still we reserve...

The right to be here,
The elitist sneer;
When we ourselves descended from
People who struggled, who decided to come

To a land where there’s plenty ~
Golden prospects, bright opportunity..

The Dream, they called it..,
Yet what have we become?

Kira Braun