Inspired by recent events, and their portrayal in the media, one of our group members, Jean Hales, decided to summarise her feelings in verse. I think you will agree that the outcome is a very poignant poem.
On the Beach
I saw a picture in the Sunday paper
I thought it was a scene
From a disaster movie
You know the type I mean?
Where the hero, the product of the great American Dream
Saves the world on the brink of disaster
Which will only be safe when they are masters
But it wasn’t a movie it was true
It was a tragic item of news.
Wild fear, desperation in her eyes
She tries and tries
Hair matted, clothes in tatters
She struggles and splashes
Towards the beach
Praying that safety is within her reach.
She tries and tries
She’s travelled thousands and thousands of dangerous miles
Over deserts through towns in dust and heat
She’s fled from oppression
And become a victim of exploitation
She’s walked and hid and avoided arrest
And now she faces her final test.
Her energy is nearly gone
As waves crash around her
And a sea of bodies surround her
So many more
Screaming and struggling to reach the shore
To the safety of an alien land
Where there sits an ordinary Greek man
Relaxing in the warming sun
Sipping his coffee
In the safety and comfort of a Mediterranean cafe
No hesitation he jumps up and runs,
Not a thought from where they‘ve come
Just knowing they are human
In desperate need.
He jumps in the water at amazing speed
And sweeps her up in his strong pair of arms
And carries her to the beach fringed with palms
Over his shoulder she goes
To safety and hope or …. who knows?
While in the safety and comfort of far away isle
A person is watching with hard narrow eyes
I don’t care! She cries
They’re not like me
They are not the same
I’m not to blame
They’re cockroaches, vagrants , feral
They put my comfortable way of life in peril
Get gunships to send ‘em back
Or put them on the next flight
I don’t care about their plight
They’re not the same
I’m not to blame.
Terrorists! He says. They’ll all flood in
Stop the aid they’re not our problem
Stop the aid send ‘em home
Send them back from where they’ve come.
Back on the beach he lays her down
His selfless act has saved her life
She’s reached freedom from a country torn with strife
She sinks
She’s safe now.
She thinks
For a little while
Ignorant as yet of other people’s bile.
How have some people become so hard?
That with their ideological brush anyone seeking sanctuary is tarred
As feral, vagrants, on the make, a waste of space
Cos they are unlucky enough to be born in a war torn place
And they are not like us
They’re not the same
We’re not to blame
We’re alright it’s not our problem
Send em home from where they’ve come.
And back in that sceptred isle, that peaceful place
A child is born into a life of grace
A life of status, luxury, privilege prestige
Will unquestioningly be bestowed
On she who will never experience the plight of those
Who every day struggle to survive
With barely enough food to keep them alive.
Denied their human rights
They choose to take flight
And leave their country, their family their roots
to take their chance on an overcrowded boat.
But that’s the way of the world isn’t it?
Winners and losers life is chance
Some are born lucky some are not
Some have little some have a lot
Why should we bother about those with none?
They are not the same and we are not to blame
It’s been like that through all time hasn’t it?
That is life we can’t change it
We’re alright we’re not to blame
They are not the same.
Except that one man on that Greek isle
Has shown we are all the same
We’re all humans who want to live in peace
He’s shown us all a sense of humanity
To disgrace those sceptics with their vile profanities
‘But’ he says,
‘There was nothing brave
About fulfilling my duty
as human, as a man’
A lesson for those sceptics
Resting in a cocoon of apathy
Whose prejudices override basic humanity.
© Jean Hales, 2015