Mighty mere of tears

the tears of migrants

the tears of slaves

the tears of the great whales

at the side of your pregnant wife and small children

so excited to be going on such an adventure

you watched your brothers friends and neighbours

and the coastline you knew so well dwindle

then disappear from view for a final time

horizons imperceptibly changing

never drawing near but falling away

your place of birth observed as though

via the wrong end of a telescope

doors closing as others opened

you sailed with hope and piety

and escaped the pity

and the poverty of your county

to settle in a land that for a time

would remind you of the language

and religion of your homeland

twenty years later you took your teaching and your healing

further west and put a necklace of fences

around uninterrupted grasslands

beneath unfenced skies

where your sons would experience

the resistance of the local tribes

at the same time as a civil war raged

the augmented savagery

the attrition of invasion

amid the convulsive nature of nation-forming

the letters home dried up

and your origins became clouded

as the demands of Capitalism became irresistible

enlisting you in the displacing and replacing

of a long-established population

the ways of living and thinking of all the participants

and their progeny changed forever

mighty mere of tears

the tears of fears

the tears of separation

the tears of those left behind