Poem: Promised Land

PROMISED LAND




A family arrived and said they had papers

to prove that his house was theirs.


No, no, said the man, my people have always lived here,

my father, grandfather .... and look, the garden,

my great-grandfather planted that.


No, no, said the family, look at the documents.

There was a stack of them.


Where do I start? said the man.


No need to read the beginning, they said,

turn to the page marked ‘Promised Land’.


Are they legal? he said, who wrote them?


God, they said, God wrote them, look -

Here come His tanks.