Little Immigrant
When each of us is born,
we come to live in a place
other than our native land.
Newcomers, settlers, recent arrivals,
we know nothing of the customs
or the language.
Even if we trail a cloud of glory,
it’s untranslatable and foreign.
Our immigrant bodies yearn
but only sometimes find
the protective skin of love.
Our souls exposed,
we are so readily wounded.
Most of us, perhaps, experience
minutes or months or more
of unsafe infancy.
The naturalized ones who receive us,
careless or crazy or cruel,
more often ignorant, impatient,
want copies of themselves,
and quickly molded.
Immigrants who are difficult
get slighted, or hidden,
or injured, or worse.
But now we can remember
how to find and reach
the bruised, bewildered
little immigrant inside
still aching for her safe repose.
Time to offer ourselves
the careful tender welcome
each of us craved when we came.
©Susa Silvermarie 2021
Your poetry brings reminders, messages and lights where it is dark. Thanks Susa.
Carol, I am honored to have you for a reader of my work. It makes such a difference to me to know someone hears. May you be well, may you be happy.
So sweet
This is such an original approach to the concept of immigration, so salient now! the last three lines, a mantra of self love. This is a winner, Susa!
Beautiful, poignant and perceptive. Loved it