Your Voices Joined Is All It Takes - Poem by Ivan Donn Carswell

They came in masted wooden ships across
an unindentured sea and cast their lot in ocean
swells to chance at history, and Sovereign power
commanded thus they rot in purgatory.
Petty crime or deeds they did in torrid
times from anxious needs which bid them cheat
and lie to live; condemned and badly done by peers
who ceded them in hostile climes, beyond the mortal
reach of mind; left to die, and die they did -
until they found the strength to live.
Our fathers of an emptiness who sought
in kind without a past or hopes to find
their fortunes, bought or lost or left behind
while we, the heirs, were all born blind.
The crush of years which still restrains our fragile
land is burst in flood; a flush, a cataract
of cogent blood spills out upon the boiling land
we killed of keepers hand to hand.
Depravity disgraced our nation and decries
our claims to truth and decency as much
as we, the authors of the lie,
fear a reconciliation in our adult prime,
and now is past, long past that time.
And still they come from distant shores, small people
fleeing failed economies, refugees
of unjust Law, seekers of hope and suffragettes,
victims escaping with no regrets the wrath
of degenerate penal rectitude, yes some criminal, indeed
still more of the same, a plenitude, and despite the rancid
throng on the docks and filthy streets along the wanton way
still more, and even more in the aftermath of every unjust War.
And still we’re bound together in our simple sameness,
proud to hear the songs of our fathers sung in the words
of mysterious tongues heard so differently from
the mediocrity that flies in the face of our true diversity,
where our milieu denies our divergence and yet
with utter pride one looks another in the eye.
Are we the makers of this injured state; ancient sons
who fear the names and concepts of the very young,
fear their differences, abjure their hate -
is it too late to stem the tide that rushes from our past denied?
Today we hear the loving words you give each other
as you set the bonds to bind you each to each forever
and bequeath the future for your time together,
the time has come to yield the power to joyous young;
make no mistakes,
your voices joined is all it takes.
© I.D. Carswell