"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore..."

Emma Lazarus' The New Colossus


Colossus' Child

Show me your land, your wondrous silver land
Pass the golden door
Where blue robins carry ribbons
And sing with the gray haired dove.


She remembers the olden times
Stood above the beaming lights
When the lady first stood gleaming
Looking out across the dawns.


Tomorrow was a baby with hazel eyes gleaming.
The child saw no color, no angst or hate
Love was a daffodil sitting on a window pane
With mobile planes and wood varnished wings
Flying above his head.


Laughing in his mother's arms
She stood watch for hindered masses
Tired, scared, lonely with tears
Looking for a golden shore
Where there was no worry,
Or terror at their door.


Now the child has returned a father
Old, wise, kneeling, picking cherry blossom days
Out of the minefields that his father's laid
Worried of the morning when nothing will be said.


Still outside his window, the plaque ideal remains
An addendum has been added now due to his father's death.


"Come my brother and sister, and all who wish to live
Away from strife and affliction to live freely from warring ghosts.
Propose to us, your heart and minds to understand our ways
As we would yours, live within our laws, we'll feed your hungry bellies
And teach your children's souls, give your men a decent wage
Take your mother's worries away."


The Colossus has seen better days, and will someday again
When the bigots and braggarts bicker no more.
The sun has shone bright against a sunlight sky
And evergreen forests sparkle across silver mountains far and wide.


The masses will huddle once again,
The poor, the wretched, the rich and the worker too
And live with peace and harmony not just here
But where other colossus' loom across teeming lands
Looking out across their own nations, seeing their world
For all the good with shelter for all.
Their life is theirs to live free.

. 2002 Joel L Young All Rights Reserved.