The
“Unsinkable” proved not to be so.
When White Star
hubris was punctured by an iceberg,
Life or death
suddenly hinged upon lifeboat access.
Ship officers such as
Murdoch, Lowe and Lightoller
Became the arbiters
who determined death or survival
Cowed into submission by a bully with a gun
Or culled by the rigidity of “women and children first”
Heart-rending scenes
of families sundered ensued.
More like sorted by
class. The line’s Director was saved.
Only one child from
the first class cabins
Fell victim to the
sea.
Poor folk were dealt
with harshly however.
Steerage passengers
were kept at bay
By locked gates, and
by doomed seamen
Ordered to make
certain the travelling poor
Remained behind with them.
Charles Lightoller,
the ship’s Second Officer,
Survived as well, and
smugly attributed it to God’s plan.
He confessed later
that what haunted him most
After the grand
vessel reared, then took its plunge,
Dumping its
passengers into the frigid Atlantic,
Wasn’t the shrieks,
the cries, the curses;
The panic of those
suddenly immersed in icy water
With death by
hypothermia ahead of them.
No, it was the
soul-searing, disconsolate cries of
“I love
you!” A last desperate attempt at a verbal caress
Shouted by some of
the doomed into the chilly night
In the hope that
their loved ones,
Safe in the
lifeboats, would hear them.
You’re Captain of the
Ship of State now, President Trump.
Will you as well,
someday remember
The anguished cries
of “I love you!”
Uttered by those
you’ve wrested from their families
To ship them back
where they came from.
Their dreams of
freedom and opportunity denied them
Too poor to pay to
remain here,
Too powerless to pull
strings to stay;
Wrong creed, wrong
country, wrong race, wrong time.
Returned to the
strife that they’d endeavored to flee from;
Banished to regimes that
may imprison or kill them.
Will you remember their anguished cries of “I love you!”
Mr. Trump? Will they haunt you?
Or will you just scowl,
grunt and tweet “Serves them right.”