Oh America, land of the free……

I get it
The beautiful coast lines
The sweeping and twisting journeys down great scenic highways
The majestic Redwoods
The meandering rivers
The constant wildlife
So here I am in America
Crossed the border at Seattle with my smuggled bananas
Travelling the bus with ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ as my companion
While outside they tear down old real estate for new real estate
So exactly where are the low cost homes?
And it is not long before I see the herds but these are not zombies
As I wander through Portland and every other city
The homeless gather
Heal to toe with the working humans who go about business and take in lunch
Not hidden away but in plain sight for all to see
Yet the people move amongst them freely without a care or any shame
That this wonderful land of beauty and plenty
This modern country
Can only provide a sidewalk or a layby for so many to sleep
When they gather as a community in highway underpasses they eventually get moved on
I come from the continent of refugee crisis and we see pictures of dying children washed up on beaches
How many babies have washed up on your City shores?
Large movements of displaced people go from town to town and City to city
They move across the state lines from cold to warm
Gathering where the hustle can pay more
Or maybe just maybe somewhere just a little less scary than the last place
Like Catherine who I meet at the food truck by Voodoo doughnuts
Shared my tacos and heard about lost pregnancies and cockroaches
Longing for a women’s shelter
While I stand back in awe at the landscape
Try to take in the magnitude and magnificent of the redwoods towering over me
Take in the evening air walking the long beaches with the crashing waves at my side
Take pleasure in the company of strangers who for a moment are friends
Like Casey the recovered alcoholic or LJ the roving collector with a pawn store
This land mesmerises with its splendour and its people extend hands of friendship
No more than our hosts in Portland who introduce us to the articulate side of politics
And the diversity of Beaverton which contrasts against the daily spill of news of hatred and rage and killing and name calling in some vain claim to patriotism which divides white and yellow and black
And as I desperately suck up the air of the coast and the river and the mountains
Hanging onto the vastness and diversity of the land
It’s the sweeping homeless vistas that brand me
Its passing the beat up trucks and cars and shack dwellings tucked away in the trees lining the freeways
The lone walkers with their signs carrying one word “Help”
It’s a barefooted woman barely clad in clothes wandering up on Mission that burns my memory
The vomit covered old Mexican staggering through down town
It’s the cheerful demeanour and smile of Gipsy frazzled with dope and painting down on Clarion alley with bubble and squeak his white rats for company
That tells me even this landscape of human tragedy called homelessness is stuffed a plenty with its own richness and diversity
So America I get it
You have it all
Except maybe one thing
Sufficient shame that in a land of plenty
The lives of the young and old are washing up on your pavements like the tides of refugees from a long forgotten war