Journey's End

by Georgie Abbott

(Image: Mahmoud Salameh, Palestinian-Syrian refugee & friend of RAC)

The noise is loud,
She wakes in fright.
They have to leave,
This is the night.

The bags are packed
Waiting by the door.
She feels the bomb
Through the shaking floor.

She takes their hands,
Squeezing tiny fingers.
Time to go,
No time to linger.

Through the dark
They run and cry.
Please don't let
My children die.

Now on a truck
The road is rough.
The babies cry,
They've had enough.

On the coast
She pays the man,
Just get on the boat
To another land.

The waves hit the wood,
Everything creaks.
Silence is defeaning,
Too afraid to speak.

She dreams of new life
No more failure.
She dreams of the future
They'll have in Australia.

But they never reach
What they've searched for,
They are taken away
To be processed offshore.

After months of waiting
She cries in despair,
Why are we here?
It is just not fair!

Her children suffer,
She watches them grow.
A mother's pain
We may never know.

She didn't want much,
She just needed a home,
But now she is here
More than ever alone.

Keep my babies alive,
She silently pleas.
And fades into the night,
She's Finally free.