The Migrant. Poem by Michael Walker

The emigrant leaves his own country
for various personal and private reasons.
He is a gambler in the lottery of the future.
He surely hopes for a better job at higher pay
to buy a house for his family, come what may.
Above all, he wants to succeed in his new country.


Thousands of Irish people emigrated to the USA
in the nineteenth century, because of the potato famine.
Many of them crossed the Atlantic in steerage class,
the lowest part of the ship, like those on 'Titanic'.
The Irish settled on the north-eastern seabord;
in Boston they became a force in Democratic politics
Poorer Irish, living in tenement housing on the margins,
had to contend with prejudice when looking for work:
'No Irish need apply', said the job notice.
Other Irish emigrants disembarked in New Zealand,
like my forebears from County Kerry.


Many migrants have sailed away from the Old World,
hoping for a better deal in a newer democracy.
The playwright Roger Hall emigrated from England
to New Zealand where his writing career has flourished:
Roger would not have made it in England's class system:
He made this clear in an interview with a Wanganui newspaper.


In Auckland I worked at the chalk face in high schools
alongside teachers from South Africa and India
whoseID was a certain English accent
with their own pronunciation and intonation:
It sounded different from New Zealand English, but understood.
I think that residents should welcome immigrants
for humanitarian and even religious reasons.
God said: 'Do not ill-treat a stranger; you know how it feels
to be rejected, because you were strangers once in Egypt'.

-20,21 October,2019.