Refugees

By Margaret Van Every

All it took were two: the primordial man

and woman were the first to be expelled.

The soil, the orchard, the pile of leaves

on which they dreamed, the beasts that

they had named—the sum of the familiar

they thought was theirs.

A sword at the back corrected them.

They did as countless refugees to come:

no questions asked, they placed one foot

before the other until they crossed a line.

Pained witnesses of forced flight—

whatever the flame that drives them out—

we weep for the home land lost.

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