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