{"id":3462,"date":"2020-04-27T10:29:17","date_gmt":"2020-04-27T14:29:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/?p=3462"},"modified":"2020-04-27T10:29:32","modified_gmt":"2020-04-27T14:29:32","slug":"april-27-pope-francis-and-refugees-no-one-puts-their-children-in-a-boat-unless-the-water-is-safer-than-the-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/2020\/04\/27\/april-27-pope-francis-and-refugees-no-one-puts-their-children-in-a-boat-unless-the-water-is-safer-than-the-land\/","title":{"rendered":"April 27 – Pope Francis and refugees \u201d . . . no one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land.\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pope Francis, July 2013 on the island of Lampedusa, spoke these words to a world just getting used to him as a new world figure. Francis chose this place of horrors at sea to call attention to the violence where refugees live.. Among other things, he said:<\/p>\n

\u201cImmigrants who died at sea, from that boat that, instead of being a way of hope was a way of death
\n. . . . . I felt that I ought to come here today to pray, (n.b., a few months after his election)
\nto make a gesture of closeness,
\nbut also to reawaken our consciences so that what happened would not be repeated.
\nNot repeated, please!\u201d<\/p>\n

What might make a poem that can compel us to pay attention to the violent places in this world? \u00a0Somali poet Warsan Shire\u00a0helps me not to lose focus. One estimate sets the number of refugees who have had to leave home and walk the roads of the world at c. 60,000,000. I am proud of my brother Jesuit, Pope Francis, for bringing his gift of hospitality \u2013 and bring us who hear him speak \u2013 into very hard places. Warsan Shire\u2019s poems, flint hard, unrelenting, reminds me of Francis and Francis reminds me of Warsan Shire.<\/p>\n

Best to read her poem out loud, with pauses. An inner place of listening to restore our kindness with courage so we can continue to pay attention.<\/p>\n

Have a blest day,<\/p>\n

john sj<\/p>\n

Text # 3: \u2013 Warsan Shire, \u201cHome\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

no one leaves home unless
\nhome is the mouth of a shark.
\nyou only run for the border
\nwhen you see the whole city running as well.<\/p>\n

your neighbours running faster
\nthan you, the boy you went to school with who kissed you dizzy behind
\nthe old tin factory is
\nholding a gun bigger than his body,<\/p>\n

you only leave home
\nwhen home won\u2019t let you stay.<\/p>\n

no one would leave home unless home chased you, fire under feet,
\nhot blood in your belly.<\/p>\n

it\u2019s not something you ever thought about doing, and so when you did \u2013
\nyou carried the anthem under your breath, waiting until the airport toilet<\/p>\n

to tear up the passport and swallow,
\neach mouthful of paper making it clear that you would not be going back.<\/p>\n

you have to understand,
\nno one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land.<\/p>\n

who would choose to spend days
\nand nights in the stomach of a truck
\nunless the miles traveled
\nmeant something more than journey.<\/p>\n

no one would choose to crawl under fences,
\nbe beaten until your shadow leaves you,
\nraped, then drowned, forced to the bottom of
\nthe boat because you are darker, be sold,
\nstarved, shot at the border like a sick animal,
\nbe pitied, lose your name, lose your family,
\nmake a refugee camp a home for a year or two or ten,
\nstripped and searched, find prison everywhere
\nand if you survive and you are greeted on the other side
\nwith go home blacks, refugees<\/p>\n

dirty immigrants, asylum seekers
\nsucking our country dry of milk,
\ndark, with their hands out
\nsmell strange, savage \u2013
\nlook what they\u2019ve done to their own countries,
\nwhat will they do to ours?<\/p>\n

the dirty looks in the street
\nsofter than a limb torn off,
\nthe indignity of everyday life
\nmore tender than fourteen men who
\nlook like your father, between
\nyour legs, easier to swallow
\nthan rubble, than your child\u2019s body
\nin pieces \u2013 for now, forget about pride
\nyour survival is more important.<\/p>\n

i want to go home, but home is the mouth of a shark
\nhome is the barrel of the gun
\nand no one would leave home
\nunless home chased you to the shore
\nunless home tells you to
\nleave what you could not behind, even if it was human.<\/p>\n

no one leaves home until home
\nis a damp voice in your ear saying
\nleave, run now, i don\u2019t know what
\ni\u2019ve become.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nWarsan Shire b. 1 August 1988
\nhttps:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Warsan_Shire<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pope Francis, July 2013 on the island of Lampedusa, spoke these words to a world just getting used to him as a new world figure. Francis chose this place of horrors at sea to call attention to the violence where … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11641],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3462"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3462"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3464,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3462\/revisions\/3464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}