She Won'T Be Going Home For Christmas Poem by Francis Duggan

She won't be going home for Christmas as she doesn't have a home to go to
And she is one of many and far too many who
Do not have a Homeland or a home to go to doesn't life seem so unfair
And thousands poverty stricken to every millionaire.

If you do not believe in human rights for everyone this you may not wish to read
But she needs every friend she can get in this her time of need
And who can blame her if she often contemplates suicide
Since all she loved taken from her and all of her dreams destroyed.

Due to man's inhumanity the highest price she paid
Her husband and her three young children died in a bombing raid
All due to human error and though sorry has been said
Sorry is a word that never can bring back the dead.

The inhumanity of humankind only she can understand
Gang raped by the warlords of her lawless Homeland
And now she's just a number on the whiteboard by the warden's office wall
And only the saddest memories left with her to recall.

A beautiful young woman in her early thirties by life she's been knocked about
She sold all of her worldy possessions for to make it this far south
In an over crowded boat owned by people smugglers to start a new life she was led to believe
But some people make their fortunes by knowing how to deceive.

Only to be arrested and placed in this detention centre long miles from anywhere
For to ponder on her future and to linger in despair,
Her second Christmas in here she is losing track of time
Yet to want a better and a safer life should never be a crime.

Classified as an illegal migrant but in truth a refugee
From her small and sparsely furnished prison cell the prison yard she see
And the electrified wire fence crowned with razor wire and the dry flower beds burnt brown
From the searing sun on the desert fringe miles from the nearest town.

The other prisoners also refugees of a similar race maybe
But their cultures very different and they see things differently
As strangers in a foreign place one common hope they share
That one day they might walk free from the confines of despair.

At night she finds it hard to sleep as on her hard bed she lay
And she thinks back on her tragic life and she only hope and pray
That she might get out of this hell and breathe in Freedom's air
And start a new life in this Land or go to live elsewhere.

The dust blown in from the prison yard gets in her mouth and eyes
And in her dingy prison cell the buzzing of bush flies,
Her husband and her three children at rest forever lay
In that war torn Country she fled from a half a World away.

She won't be going home for Christmas she doesn't have a home to go to
And she is one of many though I wish it were not true
Who will spend Christmas unlawfully detained her only crime is she
Came in a boat for a better life to this Southern Country.