When the land grows heavy,
the sea must carry its excess weight.
Often, you carry more than you can bear,
sunken ships and broken bones lay lost in your
depths,
sometimes, water is thicker than blood.
How does one sing to an unmarked graveyard?
First it’s bronze bodies thrown off ships,
now it’s bronze bodies left to sink.
Here, escaping your life means you’re chasing
death,
when the war drives you out, the sea is the only
country willing to take you in.
After learning to crawl, you must learn how to
swim,
after learning to swim, you must learn not sink,
when the land grows heavy, the sea must carry its
excess ink.
Each wave and each ripple carries all the stories
the land didn’t want to write.
Cruise ship or dinghy – which will the land let
back in?
This sea holds all the bodies we let slip out of
our grips.
When the earth grows heavy,
the sea must carry its excess sin.
Sagal Gabay