~by Ana Lisa de Jong
I saw your face
and you could have been
the same age.
Your eyes looked like mine,
except for the cares they revealed,
which I read
in a language I couldn’t interpret,
although I tried.
And I realised,
‘how could I compare?’
And yet,
your home had a heart
that I could see
in the smiles of your children
and the care taken
handling the tea tray.
And the wall hangings
in your humble tent,
the way the hearth
was swept
as though it were a royal place,
fit for God.
Which of course
it was.
So how can I compare,
I, who have every basic need
so easily me.
and each pain eventually
relieved.
I, who have no urgent fear of harm
or memory of grief too great to bear.
I, who do not know what it is to
live somewhere
that is not home,
and to know that home
as I once knew it,
no longer is.
And yet,
I see some common thread,
some dignity which can’t be lost.
Some clinging to what life
should, and could be.
A testimony to children
for whom we’re both the centrepoint.
You there,
and me here.
And I wonder then
if the language you and I speak
in hands
and eyes,
and heart
and mind,
is not, in the end
the same.
Is not in the end
the thing that binds us
though oceans and fences
keep us separate.
And I wonder if in the end
it won’t be the thing
that conquers too,
in this world gone mad
for want of what.
This failure to truly interpret.
.jpg){kind=link}