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| Vittore Carpaccio The Flight into Egypt c. 1515 One of the most well-known stories of refugees |
Property of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. In the public domain.
Thank
you to all who entered the November Poetry Challenge. It was difficult to
choose the winners. I finally selected three poems that took very different
approaches. I was a little surprised that no one wrote about the flight of Mary
and Joseph into Egypt to save their son, Jesus, from the king who wanted him
dead.
Lennart Lundh was not the only poet who looked back to ancient
literature. His poem, “Lilith,” is based on the legend that Adam had a wife before
the creation of Eve, but she was unsuitable (the reasons vary according to
which version of the legend you read), and was expelled from the Garden of
Eden, hence, “the first émigré, the first immigrant woman.” Here is Lundh’s
well-crafted poem:
Lilith
There
is lightning in the high clouds to the north,
but
distance cancels the thunder.
The
flashes reach me, but the cycle is incomplete.
The sky
turns darker, eclipses the healing moon
and
stars.
I am
the first émigré, the first immigrant woman.
I leave
as a stranger, I arrive as the same.
With no
husband, no sons, the cycle is incomplete.
The
clouds roll nearer. The air cools and turns electric.
My
daughters and I speak our only language, and
are
damned.
We eat
the only food we know, and we are cursed.
We
would belong, but the cycle is incomplete.
The
distance closes. The thunder makes the children
turn
in their sleep.
My
labor is required, but undervalued.
My
wisdom is needed, but not sought.
Our
bodies are desired, then discarded. The cycle
is
incomplete.
Silence
drops, is suddenly carried away by a thousand
fingers
drumming.
The
rain falls, warm and soft, carrying hope and salvation,
but the
ground is hard. The promise is rejected, flows
in
gutters.
The
cycle is incomplete.
~ Lennart Lundh
"Lilith" first appeared in
Lennart Lundh’s collection, Jazz Me, in 2016.
Deetje J. Wildes poem is simple, minimalist, but makes her point
clearly.
Two
Walls
An
ocean of people
surges
north
toward
a long wall
put
there
to
keep them out.
I
recall
another
wall,
a
different president.
He
shouted,
“Mister
Gorbachev,
tear
down this wall!”
~
Deetje J. Wildes
Tricia
Knoll’s poem is more personal. The images have the possibility of drawing the
reader in. We can see those “clutches of old men and women from churches” of
which the poet is a part, as well as women “babes in arms with blankets / over
their heads” in the rain. Despite the flow of the poem, we are hardly prepared
for the gut punch of the ending.
Portland’s ICE Center As the Crow Flies
Less than two miles from the horse-race track
where the Japanese reported first for detention.
Clutches of old men and women from churches,
we gather under umbrellas, watch the line of golden people
wait in the chill to be called in for processing
in a huge glass and steel building too crowded
to hold them all. More women
than men, babes in arms with blankets
over their heads, strollers and toddlers.
Fear over documents tucked in folders.
Black-tinted ICE vans pull through the metal
fence, disappear as twenty-foot gates clang down.
Through front doors, ICE agents with guns and pepper spray
monitor metal detectors, guide people to remove shoes,
sit on a bench, be swallowed up with the paperwork:
documents, residency, translation, apprehension.
After an hour, a small woman with a brave smile exits.
She may stay six months more. The witnesses applaud.
A man here for twenty years has never been called in
before to be processed, to be questioned:
where he lives, what work he does for the County.
He seems less afraid than a little girl
with braids who burrows into her mother’s skirt.
This cold queue waits for processing, a cannery word
that once meant Oregon berries, salmon, and green beans.
Now it means people. Processed people.
~ Tricia
Knoll
This poem was first published in This Rough Beast by Indolent Press in 2017, a website.
The
December Poetry Challenge will be posted sometime tomorrow.
Watch
for my new book, Pequod Poems: Gamming
with Moby-Dick, which will be published next year by Kelsay Books, as we
celebrate Herman Melville’s 200th birthday.
Keep
writing!
Bios:
Tricia Knoll recently moved to
Vermont from Portland, Oregon where she lived not far from this ICE detention
center and frequently wrote letters to judges in support of releasing men in
ICE detention who had lived in the United States for many years with families.
For more of her work, visit triciaknoll.com.
Lennart Lundh is a poet,
short-fictionist, historian, and photographer. His work has appeared
internationally since 1965.
Deetje J. Wildes is an enthusiastic
member of Western Wisconsin Christian Writers Guild. She enjoys making music
and experimenting with visual arts.
© Wilda Morris
