LIBERARTE: Poets, Composers, Musicians
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POEMS ABOUT IMMIGRATION & REFUGEES

With hope and compassion for those seeking asylum or crossing new borders of any kind, here are two poems from our original anthology, Liberation: New Works on Freedom by Internationally Renowned Poets 


AMA-AR-GI
Dunya Mikhail
Ama-ar-gi: an ancient Sumerian word that means “freedom” and “returning to the mother.”

Our clay tablets are cracked
scattered, like us, are the Sumerian letters
"Freedom" is inscribed this way:
Ama-ar-gi
 
This, then, is how the maps grew borders
The birds don’t know it yet
they leave their droppings wherever they want
their songs, like exiles, might pass by anywhere
 
There are no borders to Paradise
it contains neither spoils nor victors
there are no victors at all
Paradise is Ama-ar-gi
 
There are no borders to Hell
it contains neither losses nor demons
there are no demons at all
Hell is Ama-ar-gi
 
Ama-ar-gi might be a moon that follows us home
a shadow that stumbles on its true self
beads from a bracelet strung or broken together
a secret the tree keeps for centuries
 
Maybe it’s what crowds the prisoner’s heart
what shines around the pebbles in the embrace of the sun
what’s mixed with drops of water among the rocks
what seeps out from the dead into our dreams
 
Maybe it’s a flower borne to you
or thrown into the air
or hanging there alone
a flower that will live and die without us
 
Ama-ar-gi
that’s how we return to the mother
strangers from strangers
inhaling-exhaling from inhaling-exhaling
​ 
Thus, like all of you
we breathe Ama-ar-gi
and before we shed our first tears
we weep Ama-ar-gi

​Dunya Mikhail is an Iraqi-American poet.
 
 
 



FREE, FREE, FREE
Mary Kimani

Pain can't touch me no more,
It can't wound me
Can't cripple me,
Can't tear me apart as it once did.

Pain can't touch me no more.
It can't take away my hopes
Can't take away my dreams,
Can't steal away my future.

Pain can't touch me like it once did,
Can't touch me deep and cruel
Can't be torn or broken
Leave me numb and
Uncomprehending,
Leave me wounded and hurting,
Pain can't touch me no more,
For I am free, I am free, I am free.


I have left behind the bonds with which pain tied me
Left behind the memories that held me captive
Pain can't hold me no more
Can't tell me when to laugh and when to cry
Pain can't hold me captive no more,
I am free, I am free, I am free.

Our city still has its forest of graves
Still has spaces left gaping by lost ones
Still echo with haunting stillness
The loss and sadness still hang heavy in the air,
But it can't hold us captive no more,
For we have rebuilt our torn places
We have nursed our hurt and wounded
We have honored the many that are gone.
We have learned to live again
Re-learned how to laugh,
Learned even to love and trust again.

Death and pain can't hurt us no more
They done their worst but we have remained.
We are free, we are free, we are free. 

For we have prevailed
We have overcome,
We have lived on.

Pain can't touch us no more, not like it once did,
We are free, we are free, we are free.

Mary Kimani is a Kenyan poet and journalist.
LIBERARTE is a project of the Terezin Music Foundation and is created and produced by TMF Executive Director Mark Ludwig. 
TMF is a non-profit organization inspired by the artists imprisoned at Terezin and dedicated to honoring their creative spirit with commissions, concert events, and programs in Holocaust education. 
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