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The Mediterranean

Blue skies, blue sea

For you and me,

With beaches where the tourists come

For the sand and for the sun.


Another boat sank yesterday.


When all this is in the past,

One day we shall look back

With shame

At what we did not do

To help and save the wandering few

Who trusted themselves to a fragile boat,

That stood no chance

In the blue waves of the Mediterranean.


“Close the ports!

Do not let them enter!

Send them away!

We have enough people here!

Send them back to the sea again!”


A few heroes do what they can,

Despite bureaucracy and indifference,

To fish men and women

From the seas.


 In the cinema we weep

At the film of slaves and cruelty.

‘How terrible,’ we say,

And shake our heads and sigh.


But here we are blind

And do not see  

The crowded boats

That search for a shore,

For a place to land and begin again,

And little more.