They come with little in their hands,
from burned-out homes and broken lands.
Their hopes are packed in bags of thread,
their pasts erased, their futures bled.

The children walk through desert air,
their fathers drown in deep despair.
No one who leaves a home intact
will ever choose a life like that.

But those who watch them at the gate
are tired too, and bear their weight.
They see their towns grow loud and strange,
they feel afraid of sudden change.

They work, they save, they count each pound,
and fear their roots will lose the ground.
They ask, “Why must we always bend?
And will this flood come to an end?”

Yet lines in dirt don’t last for long—
they’re drawn by those who think they're strong.
And none alive today can claim
the soil beneath them bears their name.

This earth was passed from hand to hand
before there was a single “land.”
Each border drawn, then lost in war—
the maps you know were drawn before.

So when a stranger seeks your street,
don’t greet him first with fear or heat.
Ask where he came from, what he lost,
and weigh a life against the cost.

For none are pure, and none stand still,
and kindness bends but does not kill.
The field will yield to more than one.
We all walk west to find the sun.