A Poem about Immigrants by Sunni Brown Wilkinson
Poetry helps us think about our words and how they hold the world and its beings. Will our words be kind and respectful or cruel and diminishing? Consider these:
– Alligator Alcatraz
– Speedway Slammer
– Cornhusker Clink
Such words make the heart sad in some profound and disturbing place. They convey disrespect, even humanization. They suggest a degradation of our immigration and asylum processes and ultimately a degradation of our justice system.
Contrast these hard words with those of our Lady Liberty, the poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty composed by Emma Lazarus:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, the tempest tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
These are words that make the heart soar! As do the poetic words of Sunni Brown Wilkinson as she explores her experiences with a Congolese refugee family as they make a life a new life for themselves in Ogden, Utah where Sunni lives:
“The Hidden Honey” is from the volume The Marriage of the Moon and the Field.
