Dream's Hope | Teen Ink

Dream's Hope

April 21, 2011
By shadow66 BRONZE, Chicago, Illinois
shadow66 BRONZE, Chicago, Illinois
3 articles 12 photos 0 comments

Loss of Heaven’s son
Disaster shall strike
Heaven’s wrath descends
Where has Paradise gone?

The crops fade and die
One by one they go
Drought and famine
Will it ever end?

Rice fields bare
The tax man draws near
Where is the money to pay?
There is none.

He sells his land
She sells her son
To fill another’s greed
What else can be sold?

The greedy man came
And leaves with pockets full
No food, no money left
What can be done?

The crickets chirp
The stomach growls
No food to eat
Just dreams to fill.

A Paradise is heard
Where gold mountains grow
And food is everlasting
Who shall go?

Poor villages send
Young men and old
Across the raging sea
To their deaths or gold?

To white demons’ land
To search for gold
Send back money
To feed the old.

Across the merciless sea
We’re shipped like pigs
Death comes a walking
Is this Hell?
Cold, grey mountains
Reach not the sky
No glimmer, no shine
Where is the gold?

Icy streams of ice
Earth as hard as rock
Search, searched, searching
We look for our hope.

Early morning, late night
We hunt these empty lands
Work, eat, work, sleep,
Will this never end?

Winter comes, bringing death
He wanders happily hunting
Like the pale, white demons
Is all hope lost?

A light in the dark found
Money sent, more to come
The cost known only
To gleeful death who comes.

We work and work
And more hope is found
But then the demons came
To help or end our dream?

Nasty white demons
Take away our gold
Beating, killing, taking
Were they ever humans?

Those pale white demons
With rock cold hearts
Drive us away and far
From our clans only hope.

We search this dead land
Driven from our claims
To find another hope
Will our empty hearts ever fill?

Years we work in demon’s land
Helping them with what we can
But never were we thanked
Why are we just so hated?


The demons beat us
And call us nasty names
But we never care
Hate does us no more harm.

Years come and go
The sun rises and falls
We think of home constantly
Will we ever go home?

They dare to cut our hair
Snatching from us our only way
To return back home
Can we ever return now?

The moon shines bright
Casting illusions in the water
We think of home, our family
But only in our dreams.

The author's comments:
Based on the Chinese immigration to California during the Gold Rush.

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