THE IMMIGRANT
“Sit, stay, say how do you do”
Is that a weapon you are wielding:
A snarl, a bitter bite, for the nothing
Of a world you had not made, but you are living in,
Crept into like an infant, from the cold, the uncertainty,
flopped down by a fire,
Instead of the frozen periphery?
Who would not have made that choice,
However silly, however simplistic?
But just consider: to be so unthinkingly dependent,
To revel in being coddled, quiescent,
A credulous be-at-one-belonger, the myrmidon
Of the animal kingdom,
Instead of some singular,
Self-reliant being
We admire from a distance:
Real in the wild, the wolf on a mountain,
Peering out, like a king, at his kingdom.
Was that a choice? Was it a win, or a failure?