(Patrick Purnell SJ)

Stealthily, we moved from the edges,
Drawn by dreams of plenitude,
Leaving our homes at the margins
Of the deserted flatlands,
Where nothing grows
And what we had of wheels and cogs
Grow rust and harbour cobwebs.
It was fear that urged us on,
Hacking at our hearts,
Fear of the demented power,
That fed upon its own illusions
And cut the naval string
Which bound us to our Tribal Story.
We were stripped at gunpoint
At the precise point of intersection
Between what passed as frontier of the
Nations.

We carry nothing with us
But the golden memories


Of a love that had once
Bound us together as a people,
The incense of a gifted race
Which had ministered a fruitful land for a thousand years
And we carry, like a sacrament,
The myrrh of our Nation’s woundedness
In which is mixed the wisdom of our ancestors.

This is who we are.
These are our gifts,
As we stand before your walls
And if this is not enough
To gain entry to your land,
Let the sun come down
Upon our dry bones
And the moon carve us a grave.

(JRS Australia)

If you ask him
when did he leave his country
he can’t tell you
for he was too young
to remember.

While on the boat
escaping from Vietnam,
a strange boat
full of cruel men
came and took his mother away…
Killed his father,
threw him into the sea.

Day by day…
He still remembers
clearly


the shouts of mum
and the death of dad
and how his eyes
looked at the last.

If you ask him
when did he leave his country
he can’t tell you
for he was too young
to remember.

But if you ask him
how did he come here
he can tell you clearly…

(by Admasu Girma from Ethiopia.  Taken from “Tilted Cages, An Anthology of Refugee Writings” edited by Flutter and Solomon 1995)

Free bird,
Free bird.
What good luck,
you have.
What good chance,
that it is your right
to fly freely,
with no document,
with no passport,
to pass through
all continents,
beach of Australia to Ivory Coast.
As you like,
day and night,
having nice song
sung in delight.
To take recreation
In the Falklands
to be joyful in England.

O free bird,
let me mention
some questions.
Who has ears to pay attention?
Who has eyes for affection?
My free bird,
don’t say to me,
”Are you mad?”
I know that
I am crying
for nothing…
only to show you
my feelings.

(written by Salvadorean Refugees in Colomcagua, Honduras)   

Christmas isn’t
what the radio and the newspapers show us,  
towns full of lights
shops laden with food and drink  
that we could never afford.

Christmas isn’t  
just a single day  
to celebrate the birth of a Saviour,  
of a Liberator…  

It was Christmas when we made the “Long March”  
in 1980,  
when the stars lit up our “exodus”  
and watched  
as many fled, never to return.  

That Christmas in 1980  
a new life was born  
for this people without a country.  

Children are growing up
with eyes full of promise
and warmth in their smiles;
our hands have hardened,
kneading dough for the bread we will share
for our knowledge and hope,
for suffering and for life.  


This Christmas too,
new hopes are born,
new victories, new fruits of life;
new women and men are reborn
to work for Liberation:
teaching to read and write,
curing illness, fighting malnutrition,
making hammocks and sleeping mats,
sowing the plots of maize,
sharing, organizing,
dreaming, singing.

The stars still penetrate
this night of darkness
where the Salvadorean people
makes its way through the wilderness
towards a new country, to rehearse a dawn
which thousands of sisters and brothers dreamed of and will never see.

Sisters and brothers, give me your hand.
Christmas is the road,
the star, the dawn, is life.

Come, let’s be on our way.
The road to our new country
is a long one.