Another gift from France —
now an Oak tree,
from where so many
Americans had
fallen to eternity,
then, the Statue of Liberty
with these poetic
words chiseled
for you and me:

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

This time to cross a desert border —
children yearning to meet
parents
and to be free.

In this now cruel country,
it is not to be.