Benjamin Alire Sáenz: War (in the City in Which I Live)

I will tell you a sad story: White people are moving away
From this city that has claimed my heart. They are running away
From my people. They are running away from all that keeps
Us poor. I want them to stay and fight. I want them
To stay and live with my people. We have chased them
Away. I want them to love the people who make the food
They love. We have chased them away—are you happy? Are you
Happy? And there are people waiting in line, spending
Their fortunes just for a chance to enter, waiting, just blocks
Away from where I sit, waiting to come over, waiting in Juárez
Just to cross the river, from China and India and all the nations
Of Africa and Central America and Asia. No poet, no engineer, no
Politician, no philosopher no artist, no novelist has ever
Dreamed a solution. I am tired of living in exile. I am tired
Of chasing others off the land.

Let me say this again. Again. Again.
I want, I want this war to end. To end.

—This is an excerpt from Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s poem “War (in the City in Which I Live)” from Dreaming the End of War.

Download Sáenz’s Notes From Another Country HERE, at the bottom of the page. Highly relevant reading. An open letter to anyone who will listen from someone who lives life on the Texas-Mexico border. Powerful.

benjaminsaenz.com