Readers Write: Border Walls

The Island Now

Happy St. Patrick’s Day. 

I don’t have an original poem to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day per se, but this new poem seemed appropriate given all the talk about borders and walls and all, and that I’m 1/4 Irish going back the Potato Famine and the later civil war exodus – in fact, all my family came across several thousand miles of oceans – I thought you might find my poem at least interesting and I hope worthy of sharing.  Please feel free to share this message with family and friends.

Something there is that builds walls.

To pitch the dreams of one side blind against the other,

as if the summer sizzling away on my side

is somehow better kept to myself, not share.

And the days I go walking up and down the line

beneath the sun are something I couldn’t or wouldn’t

want to understand another way.

 What if I were to climb over a blind wall

to dream on the other side for a while—

a warning—a broken skull—unwelcome—

shackles— What?  Perhaps a meaning. 

Because walls and doors and windows are in recognition

of the soul’s condition that signify the large part

of Who I am, and What I want to believe.

Do I know him, or want you to be more like me?

 

Something there is that builds walls

and wants them to come down, because walls are

motionless and have no more than three dimensions.

Then, I want mine reduced to rubble,

to be a living thing again.

To bathe in the regenerative waters—

alternate days and nights and seasons with dreams,

until I have the sense of Infinity.

Stephen Cipot 

New Hyde Park

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