Vox Populi
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Andrena Zawinski: Rafts
Sun spills silver stars of light along rippling summer waves.
A string of pelicans wing the horizon,
light in flight for all their heft.
Children squeal and squirm inside their plastic inflatable.
One slips over the side, feigns drowning, splashing and kicking,
holding onto his crying sister, jumps back in to tickle her side––
all of them then swimming in giggles and smiles in frolic and fun,
family picnicking at the shore, waving from bright beach towels.
Other children, roped onto rafts in flimsy life jackets, float in
from Aleppo across the Aegean away from bombs and bullets
to find a way out, forge a way in, whole families cattled
by smugglers, squeezed in dozens deep. But those who slip into
this dark sea cannot be rescued with innocent teasing and mirth.
A three-year-old washes up onto the beach face down on the sand,
limp body leaden in his father’s arms,
water lapping the wounded shore.
.
Copyright 2017 Andrena Zawinski. From her collection Landings published by Kelsay Books.
Vox Populi 
“Rafts” is one of those poems that starts in one place and ends in another. I was literally at the beach near my home on a sunny afternoon watching those children frolic when the switch was flipped to other children elsewhere for whom rafts are not for play but hold the power of life and death.
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Thank you for sharing this poem. I’m going to read it along with a couple others on the same subject at Brentwood Writes’ Open Mic next month.
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Thanks. Good to know the poem will be heard in Brentwood.
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Typo: Andrena!
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Many thanks for this poem and for introducing me to Andrina Zawinski’s work. As an artist working with images of rafts and issues related to refugees and immigrants, this poem was especially meaningful….
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Thank you!
So grateful you took the time to extend your praise.
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