Aug 2015
Morning came.
The sun, though wanly yet,
From out the clouds did creep,
And chilled but more the coldness in each heart.
Night had passed.
Their craft its course had set;
They roused themselves from sleep,
Despairingly aware this was the start.
*
And then within their ******* a wondrous joy:
“We are alive. Our pained heartbeat
Is Freedom’s precious blood;
Though fugitive, we plant our feet
On this uncertain road.
Reprieve, we pray, these victims of Hanoi.”
But what inexorable dream did drive
Them to this pass? Utopia . . .?
Can desperation so
Produce a mass myopia?
Or did they simply show
A crass and rude desire to stay alive?
Freedom they sought and yet from freedom fled;
Their sorrow spent, alike their gold,
(Why give up gold for strife?)
Bewilderment assailed the old,
The rest were for their life
Content, who measured wealth by rice and bread.
This is no refuge for the older men.
Here Mammon reigns. Who dares offend
Its promissory trap?
The tree retains a bitter blend
That yet within its sap
Contains the best of threescore years and ten.
No sanctuary this; no lotus land
With blossoms sweet. Another scent
The fragrant harbour bears.
Its airs defeat their loud lament
And gives voice to their fears:
Retreat or here remain to make a stand.
Accumulated wealth; decay of man;
The evidence is all around:
This is cold comfort farm.
No penitents do here abound;
No charity; no charm.
“Dispense with it” some said “and change our plan.”
But still they stayed, and still more of them came
In constant hope: some few sanguine,
Some cynical, some scared;
The misanthrope and the benign,
Each really ill-prepared
To cope, alas, when menaced tongues declaim:
“You are not wanted here! You have no right
Our aims to thwart. We have our own
Philosophy to fill
An empty heart. Leave us alone
To line our pockets still.
Depart! Desist! This scene offends our sight.”
And whither shall they go when doors are locked
to them and barred? Another land?
Another sea serene
Yet still as hard? Forever banned;
Regarded as obscene;
Ill-starred, kept out, each avenue but blocked.
The days lay heavy on them, and the weeks
Marked mournful time; and endless nights
Of sleepless hours compose
No rest sublime. But lawful rights
And liberties opposed
By crime whose legal putrefaction reeks.
Pity those huddled masses in their hive
Of human pain. What choice had they
Beyond their selfish dream
To hope again? Perhaps to pray,
Or, with a piteous scream,
Complain once more: “We merely want to live!”
Was it not ever so, since the first dawn?
Did not our Lord (perchance, too, theirs)
Enjoy the same disdain?
(The same reward?) For what compares
With crucifix and pain
Of sword and scourge, save that one is reborn.
*
Winter brought
Another wakening day;
The menace of that dream:
Demoralizing symbol of their fears.
In the Spring
The well-tide of their gay
And sacrificial stream:
The flower must die before the fruit appears.
The sun, though wanly yet,
From out the clouds did creep,
And chilled but more the coldness in each heart.
Night had passed.
Their craft its course had set;
They roused themselves from sleep,
Despairingly aware this was the start.
*
And then within their ******* a wondrous joy:
“We are alive. Our pained heartbeat
Is Freedom’s precious blood;
Though fugitive, we plant our feet
On this uncertain road.
Reprieve, we pray, these victims of Hanoi.”
But what inexorable dream did drive
Them to this pass? Utopia . . .?
Can desperation so
Produce a mass myopia?
Or did they simply show
A crass and rude desire to stay alive?
Freedom they sought and yet from freedom fled;
Their sorrow spent, alike their gold,
(Why give up gold for strife?)
Bewilderment assailed the old,
The rest were for their life
Content, who measured wealth by rice and bread.
This is no refuge for the older men.
Here Mammon reigns. Who dares offend
Its promissory trap?
The tree retains a bitter blend
That yet within its sap
Contains the best of threescore years and ten.
No sanctuary this; no lotus land
With blossoms sweet. Another scent
The fragrant harbour bears.
Its airs defeat their loud lament
And gives voice to their fears:
Retreat or here remain to make a stand.
Accumulated wealth; decay of man;
The evidence is all around:
This is cold comfort farm.
No penitents do here abound;
No charity; no charm.
“Dispense with it” some said “and change our plan.”
But still they stayed, and still more of them came
In constant hope: some few sanguine,
Some cynical, some scared;
The misanthrope and the benign,
Each really ill-prepared
To cope, alas, when menaced tongues declaim:
“You are not wanted here! You have no right
Our aims to thwart. We have our own
Philosophy to fill
An empty heart. Leave us alone
To line our pockets still.
Depart! Desist! This scene offends our sight.”
And whither shall they go when doors are locked
to them and barred? Another land?
Another sea serene
Yet still as hard? Forever banned;
Regarded as obscene;
Ill-starred, kept out, each avenue but blocked.
The days lay heavy on them, and the weeks
Marked mournful time; and endless nights
Of sleepless hours compose
No rest sublime. But lawful rights
And liberties opposed
By crime whose legal putrefaction reeks.
Pity those huddled masses in their hive
Of human pain. What choice had they
Beyond their selfish dream
To hope again? Perhaps to pray,
Or, with a piteous scream,
Complain once more: “We merely want to live!”
Was it not ever so, since the first dawn?
Did not our Lord (perchance, too, theirs)
Enjoy the same disdain?
(The same reward?) For what compares
With crucifix and pain
Of sword and scourge, save that one is reborn.
*
Winter brought
Another wakening day;
The menace of that dream:
Demoralizing symbol of their fears.
In the Spring
The well-tide of their gay
And sacrificial stream:
The flower must die before the fruit appears.
The news of the hideous and horribly gruesome deaths of all those men, women and children in a refrigerated truck abandoned on an Austrian highway moved me to writing a poem about the inhumanity of our behaviour towards people whose only crime is that they want to live, and live a life of hope rather than one of despair. And then I suddenly realised that I had already written that poem, in 1979, when living in Hong Kong to which unwelcome haven streamed all those refugees from Vietnam, unglamorously known as The Boat People. The names and places may have been changed, but the substance remains just as it was written 36 years ago, and published in my book of verse: Uncultured Pearls:
I called it REFUGE:
I called it REFUGE:
(London, England)
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