By Bill Gallegos

Dreaming eyes piercing the velvet dawn/

            Follow the twisted shimmer of coiled wire/

It’s cutting sneer snaking along border walls.

Brown clad shapes wrapped in the dust and spikes of the arroyo/

facing the icy metal of laser-powered contempt.

Headlights burn like desert fire/ glowing beams sweeping

across lands walked by kings./

            Muffled cries of Mixtec children/ gurgle like a drying stream

Searching for ocean’s caress.

            Border’s limit trampled by conquest/nature’s soft contours soaked in blood/

History screams as yanqui arrogance gouges violation …

in earth’s warm breast.

But hope lives/ carried on the clouds of children’s smile/

Borne easily on the backs of mother’s love/ lifted high on the shoulders

of father’s dreams.

Migra’s iron cannot destroy visions of land reclaimed …

Helicopter’s slashing blades cannot pierce

liberation’s mystic heart/ politician’s rancid hate cannot drown

Freedom’s song – carried on eagle’s wings across/

La Frontera Que No Existe.

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Caption: A mural on the Mexican side of the U.S. border wall depicts the harrowing journey through the desert to reach the United States.

Credit: Jonathan McIntosh