Jul 4, 2019

Flag of Distress/What to a Migrant Child Is July 4th?

A Poem For Freedom
By Tai Amri Spann-Ryan / 400yearsinbabylon.blogspot.com
Flag of Distress/What to a Migrant Child Is July 4th?

Mother forgive us

When we know exactly what we do

Take your darker children

And lock them in dungeons of greed

Make mourners of their mothers

Drown their fathers in rivers of freedom

Force 10 year olds to raise babies

And deny them methods to heal

 

When you look at the trail that we’ve walked

Awaken to the pain we have wrought

The only logical solution

Is to repair legacies of despair

But there’s a crown that sits on oppression

Opium dens for hatred to incubate

Soldiers manufacturing consent

And stars that blind with blockbusters

 

So what to an imprisoned migrant child

Is the 4th of July?

It’s not the rocket’s red glare

It’s the ripping of the sinews of the heart

Torn from mama

Not the flag of freedom

But the chainlinked fence

The toilet bowl drinking fountain

Not the rainbowed produce aisle

But the spoiled bologna

Not a day to spend with loved ones

But straw on a desert floor

 

We don’t need another celebration

We need the cold shock of sobriety 

Don’t need to watch another show

Need to hear influenza’d cries for family

Don’t need to read POTUS tweets

Need to pay the sins of our forefathers

Don’t need infighting

Need solutions already

 

And when we feel that our problems are “the worst”

We need to remember that there’s a child

Who followed a dream

Where they saw their father drowned

Where they can’t soothe their mother’s tears

And where men with guns keep them whispering

Mother forgive us

Rate this article 
War & Peace
Videos by Second Thought
Principles to Guide Our Activism
Trending Videos
Carl Sagan's Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (1980)
780 min - Astronomer Carl Sagan's landmark 13-part science series takes you on an awe-inspiring cosmic journey to the edge of the Universe and back aboard the spaceship of the imagination.The series was...
Schooling the World (2010)
66 min - If you wanted to change an ancient culture in a generation, how would you do it? You would change the way it educates its children. The U.S. Government knew this in the 19th century when it...
Watch the Beautiful Two-Minute Ad Asking the Washington Football Team to Change Its Name
2 min - With the owner of the team vowing "NEVER" to change its name, Native American tribes around the country launched a national campaign to do just that. Want to get involved? Here's how to contact...
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace (2011)
174 min - A series of BBC films about how humans have been colonised by the machines we have built. Although we don't realise it, the way we see everything in the world today is through the eyes of the...
Bernie Sanders Suggests Running Populist Independents Against Democrats in Red States | The Kyle Kulinski Show
13 min - "I think that what Dan Osborn did should be looked at as a model for the future. He took on both political parties. He took on the corporate world. He ran as a strong trade unionist. Without party...
You Need To See This Incredible 17–Minute Film Set Entirely On A Teen’s Computer Screen
17 min - Noah, a short film that debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival, illustrates the flitting attention span and lack of true connection in digital culture more clearly than anything else...
Gratitude Revealed (2022)
82 min - Gratitude Revealed is a remarkable cinematic documentary that has been forty years in the making.The film is a transformational cinematic experience aimed at teaching us how to lead a more...
Trending Articles
Trailers
Fantastic Fungi
Subscribe for $5/mo to Watch over 50 Patron-Exclusive Films

 

Become a Patron. Support Films For Action.

For $5 a month, you'll gain access to over 50 patron-exclusive documentaries while keeping us ad-free and financially independent. We need 350 more Patrons to grow our team in 2024.

Subscribe | Explore the 50+ Patron Films

Our 6000+ video library is 99% free, ad-free, and entirely community-funded thanks to our patrons!

Sign up for our Email Newsletter