For The Sunday Muse prompt #122:

**
We have carried
our bodies to a far country,
the weight of the burden
of the duty of sons
driving us like a ship
heave-hoing in a stormy gale
to the place where our kin
were brought before.

Each day we toil
amongst the living
to save the ones
we hurt by leaving,
the labour of our bent backs
a libation poured on dry earth,
to appease the spirits
of the old ones. This
is our penance, a prayer
sung to the tune
of the songs handed down.

We the born, and those
who were borne
will someday shake
the shackles of shiny things
and like prodigals
find our way home.