IN DREAMS, DEATH

by Dick Altman

The death toll of migrants who died after they were abandoned in the back of a tractor-trailer that was discovered Monday in San Antonio rose to 53 on Wednesday… —CBS News, June 29, 2022

 

The land of the free...

 

I write this today – in America –

thanks to grandparents who heard

in heart and spirit that phrase echo

in Russian – Yiddish – perhaps

even German – Echo as they escaped

the poverty and oppression of Eastern

Europe in the 1900s – crossed mostly

by foot the continent – to land

at the magic portal of Ellis Island –

opening a door to life that until

this moment existed alone in letter

and rumor and what the mind

conjured as America

 

The land of the free... 

 

From lowlands – highlands – jungles

and shores they came two days ago –

walking – struggling – like my forebears –

this time from Mexico and South America –

leaving mothers and fathers – leaving birth’s

land and language – leaving with visions

that America would somehow – as it had

in the past – open its arms – offer – as it

had in the past – another chance at life –

Except the door – which had for

decades swung so freely – creaked on

its hinges –budging barely an inch

 

The land of the free... 

 

How many times did the refrain echo

in the minds of the sojourners – who –

no longer on foot – stood packed

in an airless – overheated subway

car of a semi-trailer – sworn to open

America’s locked heart – How many times

before the refrain turned from dream into

breathless prayer – How many times –

as one by one – the precious cargo lost

consciousness – calling – screaming

to the heavens – crying out to America’s

indifferent soul

 

The land of the free... 

 

 

Dick Altman writes in the high, thin, magical air of Santa Fe, NM, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in Santa Fe Literary Review, American Journal of Poetry, riverSedge, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Blue Line, THE Magazine, Humana obscura, The Offbeat, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The RavensPerch, Beyond Words, The New Verse News, Sky Island Journal, and others here and abroad.  A poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has in progress two collections of some 100 published poems. His work has been selected for the first volume of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry forthcoming from the New Mexico Museum Press.

SAFE HARBOR

by Louisa Calio

Maria Luisa Catrambone and her parents Christopher and Regina, founders of Migrant Offshore aId Station (MOAS). The BBC interview with Maria Luisa Catrambone is available here.

The same year I took my first cruise
and looked out at the dark blue fathomless sea
recalling all those seafarers’ stories
Ulysses, the dangers he passed, before reaching home
as well as my ancestral journeys by ship from Italy to America

Was the same year my eyes burned with tears
watching scores of migrants flee the Port of Libya
across the dark blue Mediterranean
in over-crowed inflatable dinghies
barely able to move or breathe
some drowning during the passage

Hoping to escape war, death and misery
men, women and children
risked everything for the hope of something better
Taken by traffickers, reminiscent of slave traders
profiteers of human misery

While nations debated
willing to spend millions on vessels to stop them
and not a dollar to take them in.
Just when my heart was a dark ocean of grief
about to consume me
I turned on the BBC and heard the voice of Maria Luisa Catrambone.

Daughter of an American father and Italian mother
who left college to relocate to Malta
to rescue migrants with her family
Offering food, water and medicine
to the lonely, lost and suffering
through tender open hands

Filled my heart again
Compassion turned to action.
Having known the greater purpose
beyond comfort and security
The trust that fills you with a knowing
that any resource you may need will appear
as if offered by the hand of God

The people with no Statute of Liberty or Ellis Island
to welcome them in
Have a Ship, the Phoenix,
offering safe harbor to the tired, the hungry, the poor
reminding us once more, “No man is an Island”
There is room at the Inn!


Louisa Calio is an internationally published, award winning author, whose work has been translated into Italian, Sicilian and Korean. Winner of first prize for her poem “Bhari” City of Messina, finalist for Poet Laureate of Nassau County, Director of the Poet’s Piazza at Hofstra University’s Italian Experience for 12 years, her latest book, Journey to the Heart Waters was published by Legas Press in 2014.