How the refugees live in their life. It is a very hard time. There is no shelter, live under the open skey. Christmas Poems For Refugees We think of him as safe beneath the steeple, Or cosy in a crib beside the font,
Refugee
We think of him as safe beneath the steeple,
Or cosy in a crib beside the font,
But he is with a million displaced people
On the long road of weariness and want.
For even as we sing our final carol
His family is up and on that road,
Fleeing the wrath of someone else’s quarrel,
Glancing behind and shouldering their load.
Whilst Herod rages still from his dark tower
Christ clings to Mary, fingers tightly curled,
The lambs are slaughtered by the men of power,
And death squads spread their curse across the world.
But every Herod dies, and comes alone
To stand before the Lamb upon the throne.
REFUGEES
They have no need of our help
So do not tell me
These haggard faces could belong to you or me
Should life have dealt a different hand
We need to see them for who they really are
Chancers and scroungers
Layabouts and loungers
With bombs up their sleeves
Cut-throats and thieves
They are not
Welcome here
We should make them
Go back to where they came from
They cannot
Share our food
Share our homes
Share our countries
Instead let us
Build a wall to keep them out
It is not okay to say
These are people just like us
A place should only belong to those who are born there
Do not be so stupid to think that
The world can be looked at another way
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.