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.