The Great Escape
written by: Glynn Sinclare
@chitanclare
Remember Aleppo 2012 to 2016
Now Mariupol 2022
We heard the bombs explode;
We saw the houses, fold like packs of cards.
Piles of rubble, smoking fires,
Rising from the ashes.
We searched the night with bated breath,
“Have you seen Adnan or Sayid”
We counted relatives who survived,
to greet the early glimmer, of the morning light.
The morning’s dead are strewn around the rubble;
The dark night had nothing safe to offer.
No bed to rest our heads.
Our children left to find their way.
Lost, broken and bewildered, bereft of hope.
Families grouped together, joined the mass exodus.
We leave our homeland it is all we’ve ever known.
To join the throngs along the road.
To cross through other lands,
Towards the coast, and open sea.
Forty pieces of silver to the traffickers.
A fee to pay the ferry man.
Another war to fight, tossed on the crest and swell of waves,
A boat unworthy of its task,
over loaded to the hilt with human cargo.
A terror far beyond belief.
Where is our journey’s end?
Is there a place for us to rest our head?
A place that we can call our home.
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