Emigrants
There are at least six of us tonight
looking out the window at a foreign sky
who last night had dreams of another land
the one that saw our birth and holds our love
and our hate, and the people in our heart
and all that we gave seeking this promise.
I remember our youth with its promise
how we’d talk deep, broad, into the night
of the deepest desires of our heart,
the crumbling of our castles in the sky
or how all would be well when we found love
and a job, a future, in the promised lands.
How we derided and scorned our troubled land
trapped between seas and dry of promise
—what rage and scorn in that ripe age of love—
for all that we could dream, it could benight;
we felt drowned under the weight of its sky
and the discontent would gnaw at our hearts.
It was fertile ground, then, our tender heart
for the seed to grow, to pine for a land
full of freedom and with an open sky
to develop our talent and promise,
to walk and enjoy without fear at night,
or fear in daylight when we found love.
And perhaps each of us has found much love
but not without bruises upon our heart
not without staying up late at night
fearing we’d be disallowed from these lands
when we were so close to that life promised
—we know well these heavy clouds in our sky.
Maybe today we looked at this other sky
and we found a new note in our love
mixed with nostalgia, perhaps, a promise
to see again those we hold in our hearts
and cherish those we’ve found in these lands
before the past swallows them in its night.
Under this foreign sky I pour imperfect my heart
with words of love for you, who remember that land,
who hold on to a promise, who’ll dream again tonight.