No More Campfires

by Vernie Lynn DeMille

 

Our barren deserts stretch out before us.

Endless, dry, and dangerous;

In blocks and boroughs,

And the safety of suburbia.

 

We are green with grass,

Overflowing with harvests, and

Laden with the excess of

Successful cultivation.

But

We are parched for nurturing and tending,

And hungry for tremendous dreams;

For visions that stretch us to the edge of our resolve,

The last fiber of our muscle,

And the last breath of our endurance

Towards greater growth.

 

Wayfarer souls approach our shore,

Refugees cast upon the waters

By war, famine, and conspiring men.

They come seeking,

Pleading, for a way through darker days.

They find their way from walled cities of destroyed safety

To tent cities and tenements.

To streets lined with addresses but empty of people.

To high flying lights,

Bright like stars,

With no warmth of a flame.

 

And no soft glow

Whereby they might find rest,

Camaraderie, or communion

Beneath the fraternity of

Constellations, clouds, and common storms.

 

The lights on every porch

Flicker out a warning instead of a welcome:

You’ll find cameras and crime watchers here,

But little kindness.

You’ll find locked doors and

Law enforcement on speed dial,

But little compassion.

 

Our continent is conquered.

And the campfires,

Those lower lights that burned

When we had no walls to keep out our common cold

and needed the warmth of fellow sojourners;

Those flames that once burned as beacons

To beleaguered seekers,

Have been extinguished in favor of insulated communities

Where we thank God

That the bitter winds cannot reach us.

Even as they blow fiercely

Upon present pioneers:

 

Stranded,

Destitute,

With no deliverance;

For they are deemed undeserving

Of rescue,

Or sanctuary,

Or a share in our manifest destiny.

 

Protected, warm and unwilling

To part with our abundance,

We leave them huddled

In their boats,

Their crude rafts,

Their handcarts,

On the plains our plenty has debased

Through boredom and avarice.

 

In homes where wealth

Is relabeled need,

And we think no one knows

We’ve simply redefined greed;

Our hearts grow colder,

Our hands serve slower,

And the songs of freedom are forgotten

By the descendents of those

Who built bonfires to light their way

In the new and unknown world.

 

There are no more campfires

On the plains we’ve pledged to feed the world.

There are no more salutation lights

In the halls we’ve dedicated to illumination for the masses.

There are no more guiding torches

To throw to hands outstretched,

With the hunger for freedom

Burning in their breasts.

 

I stand beneath the light of our city on the hill:

The spotlights, the streetlights, the porchlights,

The flashing lights, the searching beams.

Just at the edge where the eyes of the hungry,

The discarded, the fearful, the rejected, the refuse of humanity

Shine in the cold dark that our shadow has cast.

Where they are longing, hoping, laboring

With the salt of their sweat

To add the fire of their resolve to the flames of our hope.

And I wonder how long their embers can burn

Without the warmth of our fellowship.

 

And I fear that where there are no more campfires

There will remain no more pioneers,

And no more drive to conquer the last American frontier:

Ourselves.

 

June 23, 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

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