Poem: We are refugees

Kokulan
August 28, 2010
Issue 
850
Culture

No ā€¦ politeness, happiness, humanity
Have ā€¦ pain, sorrow, suffering
Nobody is here, to love us
Nobody is here, to be honest
We are suffering without love
We are expecting politeness person
We are looking for humanity ā€” but
we couldnā€™t see anywhere
We couldnā€™t see in the dream also
We are suffering difficulties for a
long time
We faced so many sorrows in our
country
Even we canā€™t tell anything that
our past life
We canā€™t explain in a word

We wanted to escape from our
country
We had seen Australia to save our
life
We were become as refugees and
orphans
How to explain, our difficulties.
We are thinking, our Tamilā€™s sorrow
will not finish
Like unceasing waves can never be
stable
Nobody understands about our situation
Nobody considers our sorrow
They ordered:
Donā€™t go out even to pray
the God
Donā€™t go to oval
Donā€™t explain your situation to
others
Donā€™t talk your sorrow
we consider anyone because
ā€œyou are refugees in Christmas Islandā€

[Kokulan is one of the Sri Lankan refugees facing court over the ā€œriotsā€ in the Christmas Island detention centre. He wrote this poem after spending 16 days in ā€œred blockā€ ā€” an isolated maximum security block ā€” and was moved to Phosphate Hill, a temporary detention centre on Christmas Island.]

Australia

Comments

Anonymous replied on

nice......

Anonymous replied on

Dear Friends, I have compiled an anthology of children's poetry to be published in 2013 here in Australia and am looking for well-written poems suitable for children aged 8 to 14 years about the refugee experience. If you have any or know of any, can you please send them to me to dibates@pacific.net.au? Thanks and best wishes, Dianne (Di) Bates

Anonymous replied on

I loved the poem personally. It really touched my heart because I now understand how they must feel. I came from Lebanon to Australia when I was six. We never got hurt by anything, and the family that stayed were all fine, but we left because we were and are still wary of what might happen to us if we had stayed, or even if we go back. After reading this poem, I think to myself, what if we had stayed and this happened to us? We would have been refugees too. All I can say is, we should all be grateful of our circumstances because nothing could be worse than what refugees are going through. Sincerely, Anonymous

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