Advent 2021 Day 9

For all of us who have barefoot, migrant hearts -

"It's a hard time to be human. We know too much and too little." - Ellen Bass, The World Has Need Of You

I love my home.

The snow a blanket in winter,

the flowers on mountains in spring,

the salt of seas in summer,

the leaves on trees in fall,

are art for my heart.

My family is here.

My memories are here.

Yet one too many clouds have disappointed me by banking on the horizon yet not bringing rain.

One too many coughs have broken my children, my heart, because there was no medicine to give.

I am tired,

poor,

huddled, 

wretched, 

homeless,

tempest-tost.

I love my home,

but it’s time for me to go.

I pull on my brown, tattered coat,

my black, holey shoes,

my red, wool scarf.

With tears in my eyes

I say goodbye.

I pick up my battered suitcase,

the one with tape around it’s ends,

lest it break open and spill out

my father’s shirt,

a love letter,

a picture of my children,

all I have in the world,

onto the ground.

I take my first steps toward a new land.

I sit silently,

back to back,

knee to knee

with poor people,

who also have 

migrant hearts.

I am deep in the hull of a ship,

tossing in a storm on the sea.

I am high on the roof of a train,

winding down a steep hill.

I am walking on a dusty road.

My barefoot, migrant heart.

- Trevor Scott Barton, Brown Eyed Poems, 2021