Let Them Come

Let Them Come
(For the Victims of the 2010 Haiti Earthquake)

let them come.
let us open our borders and let them in.
how can we not
and live?
because it is a matter of karma,
when it is our time the universe will remember.
because we are to keep our sisters and brothers,
we are to share our shelter.
let them come in pieces across the water,
let us give them love and bread and medicine,
or we will burn.

let them be called refugees,
no longer “illegal” or “alien,”
let them know we are sorry we never recognized
until now
they are our family,
tell them we are sorry for The Mud,
the raids at midnight,
the rapes at the Detention Center.
we are sorry for denying belonging
to their children who are born here.
we will meet them on the beaches,
we will tell them ourselves that we are sorry.

let them come.
we owe Haiti, Mother of the Free Caribbean,
we owe Haiti, we looked away when the soldiers rampaged, then the poverty.
we owe Haiti, too many babies are crying in Port au Prince tonight
for our comfortable sleep to continue,
let us become the ones they are waiting for,
the ones willing to begin to repay them.
open the borders and let them in,
how can we not
and live?