
I’m not going to make the ‘Families Belong Together’ Rally in Onancock today (Saturday, June 30) from 11-12:30. And when asked for a statement, I couldn’t find the words. So I contributed this poem to be read. May we find the ‘we’ that is truly ‘us.’
Who is this ‘we’ into which I am enlisted?
What is this sweet land of liberty I invoke when I sing, “My country ’tis of Thee”?
What God do I invite to bless America?
Who are the ‘we’ who hear cries from the Valley of Texas
and wonder what ‘we’ we have become?
‘Our’ ancestor, we Christians say, was a wandering Aramean.
When we look to the Scriptures we hear Deuteronomy’s command
to look after ‘them’—the sojourners in our midst—
because ‘we’ were sojourners in other lands.
We are those who sing ‘Sometimes I feel like a motherless child’
while motherless children in scattered camps feel it more.
We are those who have beaten our breasts (insufficiently)
and sought repentance (insufficiently)
and proclaimed (insufficiently)
that we see and deplore the excesses and the evils
of native peoples separated from their lands and kin
of enslaved peoples separated from their lands and kin
of Japanese American families detained with their kin.
The injury is not only to ‘them’
but to us.
When we use the rationale of deterrence to excuse cruelty,
we injure ‘us.’
When we meet those who have left troubled lands seeking asylum here
and offer them instead more trouble, more trauma, no room at the inn,
we injure ‘us.’
When we allow our immigration policy, debate, and system
to devolve into division and expressions of helplessness
we injure ‘us.’
“When was it that we saw you homeless, naked, hungry, imprisoned
and did not respond with the love you showed us
but instead with the inhumanity we know too well?,”
the separated goats asked Jesus.
“When you did not see me crying for my father, my mother,
my daughter, my son.
“When you did not see.
“When the injury came to me,
it came to you.”
It comes to us.
Who is this ‘we’ into which we are enlisted?
It is you and me and them and us.
We are one people.
To call for a humane and fair immigration system is not a call
for the end of borders or law enforcement or thoughtful policy.
It is a call for the end of injury
…to all of us.
—29 June 2018
3 responses to “Who is This ‘We’?: Poetry for the ‘Families Belong Together’ Rally”
Very moving, Alex. Thank you. -Pam
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Thanks, Pam!
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Indeed, how soon do we forget our connection to that wandering Aramean! Thank you, Alex.
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