Migrations

One small boat pitched

on the dark sea — One child

cast up on the cold shore.

Here is the fulcrum of our age:

The bandit wind

has stolen the music of breath.

Now all roads west are

chockablock with broken prams,

carts laden with bundled dreams.

So useless to write of this

safe by the warming fire,

an ocean distant.

Beside the railroad gate

ten thousand pairs of hands

reach out for water.

Behind them, fire, ahead

the ache of night — I cannot

suss the choice I’d make.

I have no words for this.

It moves from words

toward a deeper pulse.

And we are lost between

ocean and sky, with nothing

to hold but each other.

Luther Jett