Photo credit: Yafa Goawily
Where We Left
By Erin Thomas
We left at an awful time,
a barren road of crimes,
war and emotion – less people
nothing to hold but our children
Can we start where we left?
There is so much unsaid
so much left behind
and many left to die
In their misery and ours
we left for a better place
where we found our pace
among culture shock and new space
But then we grew far
from the land from which we came
our address was no more
even the house was smudged off maps
In spite, trying hard to fill the lapse
Oh dear, there are never ending gaps
between our mother-tongue and what we speak
to the food we eat and the songs we sing.
There is nothing left of home,
but we have made one of our own.
We hold the pages together in a book
which is as heavy as our hearts can carry;
We are nations set to roam
Rebellion is in our blood,
it runs through our veins and bones
Like our fore-fathers and theirs
who once fought for what was their own.
Photo credit: Aashish R. Gautam
I am both Dark & Beautiful
“because we are more than the color of our skin”
By Erin Thomas
We are more than the shades that
color pallets run out of
The dusky wheat ready for harvest
The color and aroma of tea
The hew of mahogany and teak
Powdered sandalwood
The sands of Arabia that sweep across the land
The coffee beans and wheat grains –
that flows from the farmer’s hands
We are nature in its contrast and ray
We are Earth’s shade in its grace
like olive clives set across lands
it is time we embrace every skin and shade.