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| Image source: Fergal Keane @fergalkeane47 16h16 hours ago: #AylanKurdi Father Abdullah tells me wants to bring his dead children home to Kobane. |
The father who carefully escaped
overland the dread, the torment,
threats, fire and bombs of Syria,
then gathered up your family again
with small bags of clothes
and biscuits, climbed aboard
a rickety boat heading
to the island of Kos, bound
in an armor of hope?
When high waves toppled
the boat and the captain deserted,
did you steer until impossible?
Are you the father who watched,
who saw your wife float away,
your little boys struggling
for air, then gone?
Are you the father who cries
as he picks up one beautiful son
washed up on the beach,
who wonders where the world is
as the ocean swallows his nation?
Marilyn Peretti, Glen Ellyn, Illinois, is published by The New Verse News and various journals; nominated for Pushcart Prize; and publishes poetry books on www.blurb.com/bookstore. She writes with fellow poets in Chicago's western suburbs.