Fences

A rewrite of an earlier post. So often it boils down to hanging out the laundry not fully washed.

Fences

Imagine the countries of Europe erecting Auschwitzian wire fences

with no man’s land between: grassy lanes of ragworth, thistle and buttercup.

Imagine, like water released into channels, migrants entering these paths,

growing from trickle to torrent, eventually filling them; a teeming mass

constantly jostled onward to no destination. The seasons passing,

summer to winter, the grassy paths turned to mud, then frozen under snow;

a metre to either side, border guards watching with disinterested expressions.

Imagine these human streams flowing across the map of Europe

serenaded with the music of its civilization, Hungary, Austria, the Czech Republic:

Mozart, Bartok, Mahler…….,

and the migrant contemplating freedom beyond that barbed wire fence;

a perspective so horrifying less than the span of one lifetime ago.