Will Barber - The Border

Along the border lurk our passions,
Along the border waves rush in;
Along the border come the humans
Thirsting, hungry, full of pain.

O when may we believe our hearts
Which beat in tune, over the earth?
Along the border the thesis starts:
Mankind separates at birth.

Pay the laborer his wages
Ere the sweat dry on his brow.
Fear not the stranger: time assuages
Doubt, and you must seek to know

The stranger's dance, the stranger's song,
The heartbeat that we share: mankind
Must love itself, at least. We wrong
Ourselves, in choosing to be blind.

Beauty cries from every point,
Every dimension, of the universe.
Come sing: let not your heart grow faint.
Love casts out profane remorse.

Come sing, and sing more joyfully
For every night that falls. I see
The stars wheel 'round the pole, and we
Are found and lost, eternally.

Interminably, the waves rush in,
And we are lost, and found again.

2006

Deuteronomy 24: 14

Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy strangers that are in the the land within thy gates.

Will Barber

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-border/