Hearing Silenced and Overlooked Stories

Pope Francis challenges us to "look into the face of the asylum seeker and really hear
their story so that they are no longer a stranger to be feared and we can no longer be
indifferent to their need."  (6 September, 2015)

Let us pause to hear the story of the cry of the poor in the words of the Kenyan-born
Somali-British poet Warsan Shire:

No one leaves home unless

home is the mouth of a shark.

You only run for the border

when you see the whole city running as well.

You only leave home

when home won’t let you stay.

You have to understand,

that no one puts their children in a boat

unless the water is safer than the land.

No one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck

feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled

means something more than journey.

No one crawls under fences,

no one wants to be beaten, pitied.

No one chooses refugee camps

or strip searches where your

body is left aching

or prison,

because prison is safer

than a city of fire.

I want to go home,

but home is the mouth of a shark.

Home is the barrel of the gun

and no one would leave home

unless home chased you to the shore.