Rushes Blown Poem by Paul Brookes

wind rushed, we rushed across grey mutable Atlantic,
we came to the call from warm bathed shore
to cold shouldered cobbled beaches,
for a better life, sugar promises that melted in the rain.

poor we may have been, educated we were,
teachers, doctors, nurses
but only qualified to mop your floors
yes we mopped, we mopped away.
made a life, became other.

our floors were clean for we knew about cleaning floors
but the signs went up, no dogs, no Irish, no blacks,
we even were bottom listed in prejudicial roll calls.

now the wind rushes cold, all our years of toil wiped away
belittling our contribution, we were mopped up.
these black lives that didn't matter
and we dislocated, ill wind rushed,
back to a land now foreign to us
like so many chained ancestors
uprooted and discarded.
strangers in our own land.