"Beatitude: from Syria," "Anxiety at the Borders," and "We have been."

Beatitude: from Syria

they pull the dinghy up and sixty figures, some children,
fall on their knees on the sand, blessing
the grit and the stones, blessing the sharp-edged
pieces of brown glass, the unmoving earth, blessing
blessing they make their way
across the parched island,
to the stony mainland, to the promised North.
 
This tense dream
the passengers on the rubber raft,
a few still afloat,
if they are lucky,
hold to tight, even while sinking
a hundred meters from shore.

Anxiety at the Borders

we will make them different we smooth their carried from away sand
abraded surface, rub out their words give them new ones that they did not say
give ourselves them so we can know ourselves the wall tells us we are
 
wall
 
out behind the wire in back of the gates inside the boxcars but still
something remains the traces. They say they can be found, they can find.  
 
 
Where are they, the traces, of the ones who seemed to have less.  They search
the sky, they look for water eventually
they become foam.  They write even now in the sand, with their bones.

We have been.