I Saw Your Fire Burning Bright

I composed this poem more than a year ago during the first stage of the US Presidential Campaign, when migrant crisis suddenly gripped the United States. Today I post this as a gift to the Eagle Nation's Day of Independence (also the Filipino-American Friendship Day), celebrated not only by the Americans but by the immigrants that she has orphaned. May she be as kind to her sons and daughters she both conceived and received.

From afar, I saw your fire burn so bright,
The sea was meadow-calm and day was night;
I gazed at you and mused behind the prow,
The peace the west world promised I would owe:
The sun descended right upon your hand
As flowers raised with petals flying, grand,
To greet us tramping who for sweetness thirst,
And upon entering all hurrahs burst,
Hoping aloud our burdens be relieved
With tears of joy for freedom be believe
To be embraced; for most are long deprived
With air to fill our lungs with breath of life;
Let roll our war-torn carpet to your door,
Lady, who promised to receive the poor;
The dreamers, inhumanity-suppressed
And the slaven, forgotten, unaddressed;
Bid them welcome as children not by race,
We ask not for your good alms but your space:
In the cold Atlantic we knocked for rooms
Where there is warmth to make our roses bloom:
Oh candle-bearer on our foreheads shine
The sacred light reflected in the brine!
Behind you rose those humid towers high,
Where she, your never-sleeping city lie;
Oh! May the sun perching on your hand, I pray
Be the same fire they dreamt burning yesterday!
Liberty emblazoned in your freedom’s bell,
If you shall keep us, I pray you keep us well;
For minions under color, faith and tongue’s decree,
Walking in these iron shackles so enter we.