We will go Home,
But where is Home?
Yes, we will Run Away.²
We’re old enough to guess
Home is Gone if we went there—³
If you ask us where we’re from,
We have to speak with Broken things—⁴
What does an Immigrant call it when
They have no home to go back to?⁵
We fade like Ghosts into the
Broken country on the Borders—⁶
No one puts their Child in a boat—
Unless the water is safer than the land.⁷
Is Migration still possible if there
Is no other land to Arrive in?⁸
Memory has the fragrance of a
Weeping night flower arousing in the
Exile’s blood a need to Sing …⁹
Death is the only Border
Crossing still open to all—¹⁰
¹ Saint-John Perse tr. Denis Devlin, Exile
² Richard Wright, Black Boy
³ Philip Whalen, Native Speech
⁴ Pablo Neruda tr. original, There’s No Forgetting
⁵ George Abraham, Counter-Terrorism
⁶ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers
⁷ Warsan Shire, Home
⁸ José Olivarez, Ars Poetica
⁹ Mahmoud Darwish tr. Munir Akash & Carolyn Forché, Mural
¹⁰ Ken Chen, Pre-Credit Sequence for the Film About the Camp