My friend Phil invited me to illustrate one of the poems from his recent chapbook, Homeless God (click to purchase).
The publisher describes his book this way: “In these poems, Aijian explores people on the edges of society: refugees, prisoners, panhandlers, and more. Aijian asks his readers to reckon with the often grim selfishness that can blind our eyes to the dignity and divinity in every seeming stranger. These poems could not be more timely.”
The poem Phil assigned me casts Jesus as a young refugee girl crossing the Mediterranean in a storm. I decided to draw the girl in the style of an icon of Jesus: with her right hand giving blessing, her head haloed and crossed, wearing red over blue. I drew her clothing, some of her facial features, and her doll based on five different photographs of Syrian refugee girls from the past 8 years, especially these photos by Fatih Ozenbas and Osman Sağırlı.
The poem is included below with permission of the author.
III. The Aegean Sea - The Sea of Galilee
I have seen the houses they flee,
each one a chest punched open;
their ribs splinter out.
I could lash those same bones together,
sell them back to their scattered souls
and call them rafts.
But the real profit comes with real boats.
I’ve sent almost 100 of them toward Italy.
Warning labels insisted on a limit
of 45 people, but the boats are German.
Germans aren’t as fat as Americans,
but they’re still well-fed. They wear belts
because belts are fashionable.
Still, I worry about peace. I fear
some do-good politicians will conspire
to turn off the spigot of people that flow
to my shore. And who would survive
the desert must not greet the miracle
of its rain with teacups.
I bought this freighter and now
the sea spasms obsidian,
its conspiracy struck with cloud and night.
We all but see as wave upon wave rises,
each like the firstborn among mountains,
summoned as by God’s command
out of nothing, waiting
to be assigned their geographies.
Yet over their roar, another din
rises in my ears. 879 people, in the throes
of throwing up, giving birth, squabbling
for stones that might be bread.
I ordered my crew to guard the doors
from the outside, but they’re abandoning
their posts. The captain says we should, too.
This was the plan, after all.
Aim the boat, make the getaway,
leave things to the Italians.
We stagger out the bridge door
along the deck to find the one raft,
fruit of my thrift,
looking more deflated than I remember.
Muted cries sharpen on the wind
as the winches moan.
My customers surge over the deck.
They curse me, beg me to come back,
to take their children. But the steel cables
snap in quick succession, and we plunge.
No less noisy below, the wind
exchanged for a dull throb and whoosh
of water, I hear muffled, bubbling cries.
Three or four murky lights sweep wildly,
then sink. I struggle to the surface
I open my bleeding mouth to cry
to the ship, and a wave chokes me.
I cough, spit, gasp, another wave.
I discover my flashlight still working,
tethered around my neck. I grab it
and wave it wildly toward the deck.
Its beam ascends through the dark
like a ghostly rope. Some of the crew reach,
as if trying to grab it. Then, at the end
of its ray, I see Jesus, a threadbare doll
nestled under her chin as she peeks
over the railing. She yawns and rubs her eyes
with a small fist. I laugh to myself
to think of sleeping in these conditions.
Then, like a blue star, a keyhole of sky
pierces through the storm,
turning to a tear that follows a seam
in the clouds. The wind dies down
as with a long sigh. The sea churns to grey,
foams cobalt, glimmers blue. I look back
to the ship, and again see Jesus.
She’s found a rope ladder, coiled tightly.
Pausing for a moment, she regards me
with a small, even smile.
Then, carefully placing her doll
in the crook of her arm,
lowers the rope ladder.