
A Foreign Shore
I spied a relic on a foreign shore,
abandoned on its island in the bay:
‘Mother of Exiles’, who welcomed in the poor
and homeless, lay in ruins and decay.
Only the statue’s massive feet remained
with broken shackles, symbol of the free;
nearby a torch, encased in gold, retained
no flame, no beacon-glow to light the sea.
No more the world-wide message would she spell
to free the huddled masses, unconstrained –
wiped out by forces no one could foretell.
Beyond, a desert, boundless, bare and void,
a graveyard for democracy, the knell
of shattered hopes, a million dreams destroyed.
Sylvia Fairley
If you have any thoughts about this poem, Sylvia Fairley would be
pleased to hear them