As a Christian, and a grandmother, I have been supporting Grannies Respond/Abuelas Responden for a long time. My small donation isn’t much compared to the personal presence of so many in the group. Their recent newsletter featured a poem from Kali Bird Isis, one of the original 30 Grannies, who traveled two years ago to McAllen, Texas, “to shine a light
on Trump’s policy of separating children from their asylum-seeking parents.”
Kali is an ordained interfaith chaplain and grief and trauma expressive arts therapist, who returned early in the year to volunteer at the refugee encampment in Matamoros, Mexico, across from Brownsville, Texas. Her poem follows below:
After Matamoros
By Kali Bird Isis
I’m between worlds.
Back in the busy of every day,
and of everyone and into the noise
of traffic and laughter, and back into work
and back to bagels and coffee and everyday
plans.
I’m back.
Except I’m not.
I’m full of the encampment in Matamoros and
how the wind blew hard and cold one
night and how the babies cried and the oh-so young mamas
held them close as they lay on the hard, hard ground
in their flimsy tents,
and the wind rattled through the
bougenvilla with tent after tent packed one next to another.
I’m back with the fence and all that barbed wire
and the Rio Grande,
too dirty for drinking and not that impressive
but it keeps most of them out-
They want safety and they believed they would find it,
and they wait in lines, a 1000 or more,
for dinner and court dates, a sham and a shame, with
judges on screens in big white tents,
and too few lawyers who are paid too little,
working long hours with their own hope fading as they look in their eyes.
They wait for the fire to catch and they wait
for their women to cook a meal and
for the free store to open,
or to see a doctor if there happens to be one,
for relief for the children who suffer from lice and
from boredom, from fear.
They wait for the sidewalk school that still somehow opens,
for the volunteers like me who can help serve up
a meal.
They wait for the hurricane to end, for the rain waters to recede,
for new tents and masks, for continued supplies.
They wait for justice and a little more faith.
For Covid to end.
They wait to believe they will finally be seen and they wait
for the end of long journeys and the
fear of returning to places where death surely awaits.
They wait and they wait for the rules to change.
They wait for compassion and a promise of safety.
I’m between worlds and it might take awhile
I’m hoping forever so I never forget
And I’ll keep going back
And I’ll stand with others
Who will tell these stories so everyone hears
That there are hundreds of people each day who are dying
All over the globe,
Who have hope in their hearts and a desperate yearning
For everything we here already have.
I saw them led, shackled and chained, onto predawn flights
And flown away to alien lands.
And I can’t forget Caleb, the young boy that I loved,
how he helped me serve meals
and translated the Spanish,
and where is he now after so many miles?
He fled with his mother and with his abuela over the mountains
to get here to safety and I promised not to forget
(Please don’t let me forget),
I don’t want to ever stop knowing
That there are so many people
With so many children just wanting what you and I
always have had.
We have to keep seeing and telling their stories,
We have to make sure that we never forget.
This poem, photo and information first appeared in the Abuelas Responden/Grannies Respond September 2020 newsletter and was reprinted with permission. You may find them on Facebook @granniesrespond.
