Refugees and migrants arrive on the shore of the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey on Monday: photo by Aris Messinis/AFP, 28 September 2015
Not in the same boat,
never the same boat. Not
until the poor come
into the house of the rich
do the rich even
notice
that the poor exist.
that the poor exist.
They wash up
on the rocks
of Lesbos
in orange inflated
jackets, weeping,
crying out
thanks to their God.
Same scale, but not
the same notes. We live
in the same
time, but we don't
live in the same world,
they say.
We breathe the same
air, but only after you
have breathed it first,
and you always found it easier
not to go there,
never to know.
Gibraltar: Charles Pears for the Empire Marketing Board, c. 1930 (National Archives UK)
Trials of the Voyage: Water
GREECE - Afghan refugees arrive to the island of Lesbos after crossing
Aegean sea from Turkey. By @ArisMessinis #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 28 September 2015
Refugees and migrants arrive with boats from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos: image via Aris Messinis @ArisMessinis, 28 September 2015
Refugees and migrants arrive with boats from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos: image via Aris Messinis @ArisMessinis, 28 September 2015
Refugees and migrants arrive with boats from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos: image via Aris Messinis @ArisMessinis, 28 September 2015
Refugees and migrants arrive with boats from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos: image via Aris Messinis @ArisMessinis, 28 September 2015
Refugees and migrants arrive from Turkey in the Greek island of Lesbos: image via Aris Messinis @ArisMessinis, 26 September 2015
Refugees and migrants arrive with boats from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos: image via Aris Messinis @ArisMessinis, 27 September 2015
Refugees and migrants arrive with boats from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos: image via Aris Messinis @ArisMessinis, 27 September 2015
Refugees and migrants arrive with boats from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos: image via Aris Messinis @ArisMessinis, 27 September 2015
Refugees and migrants arrive with boats from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos: image via Aris Messinis @ArisMessinis, 27 September 2015
GREECE- Syrian refugees are covered with life blankets upon arriving to the island of Lesbos. By By @ArisMessinis #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 28 September 2015
#migrants arrive on the Greek island of Lesbos. #AFP Photo by @ArisMessinis: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 28 September 2015
#migrantcrisis - A man wearing a life blanket walks after arriving on Lesbos island. By Iakovos Hatzistavrou #AFP: image via Christophe Delattre @chrisdelattre7, 24 September 2015
#Migrants and refugees arrive with boats from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos. #AFP photo by @ArisMessinis: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 28 September 2015
#Migrants and refugees arrive with boats from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos. #AFP photo by @ArisMessinis: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 28 September 2015
#Migrants and refugees arrive with boats from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos. #AFP photo by @ArisMessinis: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 28 September 2015
#Migrants and refugees arrive with boats from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos. #AFP photo by @ArisMessinis: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 28 September 2015
Refugees and migrants arrive with boats from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos: image via Aris Messinis @ArisMessinis, 26 September 2015
Refugees and migrants arrive with boats from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos: image via Aris Messinis @ArisMessinis, 26 September 2015
Refugees and migrants arrive with boats from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos: image via Aris Messinis @ArisMessinis, 26 September 2015
Refugees and migrants arrive with boats from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos: image via Aris Messinis @ArisMessinis, 26 September 2015
Migrants and refugees from the Middle East arrived at Greece’s Lesbos Island on Saturday after crossing the Mediterranean Sea by rubber raft from Turkey: photo by Tyler Hicks/The New York Times, 26 September 2015
Thousands of life jackets from refugees and migrants form a small hill in the island of Lesbos: image via Aris Messinis @ArisMessinis, 28 September 2015
Trials of the Voyage: Overland
Migrants and refugees queue near a registration camp after crossing
the Macedonian-Greek border near Gevgelija on Monday. Macedonia is a key
transit country in the Balkans migration route into the EU: photo by Armend Nimani/AFP, 28 September 2015
Refugees and migrants look out of windows aboard a train in Gevgelija. #AFP @armend_nimani: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 25 September 2015
Macédoine: des migrants dans l'attente d'être enregistrés dans un camp près de Gevgelija. Photo @armend_nimani #AFP: image via Agence France-Presse @AFP, 26 September 2015
Macédoine: des migrants dans l'attente d'être enregistrés dans un camp près de Gevgelija. Photo @armend_nimani #AFP: image via Agence France-Presse @AFP, 26 September 2015
Macédoine: des migrants dans l'attente d'être enregistrés dans un camp près de Gevgelija. Photo @armend_nimani #AFP: image via Agence France-Presse @AFP, 26 September 2015
Macédoine: des migrants dans l'attente d'être enregistrés dans un camp près de Gevgelija. Photo @armend_nimani #AFP: image via Agence France-Presse @AFP, 26 September 2015
MACEDONIA - Refugees wait to board a train at the registration camp near Gevgelija. By @armend_nimani #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 28 September 2015
#Slovenia Barbwire fence, set up by Hungarian Army, at the Slovenian-Hungarian border in Pince. #AFP by Jure Makovec: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 25 September 2015
#Slovenia Barbwire fence, set up by Hungarian Army, at the Slovenian-Hungarian border in Pince. #AFP by Jure Makovec: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 25 September 2015
#Slovenia Barbwire fence, set up by Hungarian Army, at the Slovenian-Hungarian border in Pince. #AFP by Jure Makovec: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 25 September 2015
#Slovenia Barbwire fence, set up by Hungarian Army, at the Slovenian-Hungarian border in Pince. #AFP by Jure Makovec: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 25 September 2015
Military escorts of #refugees assumes they might run. But where? #Hungary: image via Laurence Lee @laurielee67, 26 September 2015
Migrants
and refugees arrive at the registration camp after crossing the
Macedonian-Greek border. By @armend_nimani: image via Stephanie Beauge
@sbeaugeAFP, 26 September 2015
Refugees look out from the window of the special train which transported them across Hungary to Hegyeshalom. By @armend_nimani: image via Stephanie Beauge @sbeaugeAFP, 26 September 2015
What There Is To (Never) Forget
اكثر من 100 شهيد في دوما: image via Kamel Almast 20165 @SYR, 16 August 2015
قبل الموت بلحظه ضمته حدث في هذا اليوم في ريف حلب: image via Kamel Almast 20165 @SYR, 8 June 2015
اين حقوق الطفل اللذي تتكلمون عليه ... ... ياالله مالنا غيرك: image via Kamel Almast 20165@ SYR, 4 June 2015
مجزرة جديدة في مدينة حلب ..#Aleppo #Genocide @Syria: image via Ahmad Bhaa Hanifa @AhmedHanifa, 12 May 2015
Signs and Omens
The spectacular #SuperBloodmoon, seen around the world: image via Reuters Top News @Reuters, 28 September 2015
The spectacular #SuperBloodmoon, seen around the world: image via Reuters Top News @Reuters, 28 September 2015
A lunar eclipse coincides with a so-called “supermoon” in
Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, England. Sky-watchers around the
world are in for a treat Sunday night and Monday when the shadow of
Earth casts a reddish glow on the moon, the result of rare combination
of an eclipse with the closest full moon of the year: photo by Carl Recine/Reuters, 28 September 2015
If you missed it, take a good look at the astonishing #SuperBloodmoon: image via Reuters Top News @Reuters, 28 September 2015
A man collects coconuts and other items thrown as offerings by worshippers in the Sabarmati river, a day after the immersion of idols of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, in Ahmedabad, India: photo by Amit Dave/Reuters. 28 September 2015
People hold their umbrellas while walking against strong winds caused by Typhoon Dujuan in Taipei, Taiwan, on Monday: photo by Pichi Chuang/Reuters, 28 September 2015
Pope Francis speaks at Independence Hall in Philadelphia on September 26, 2015. AFP PHOTO / Vincenzo Pinto: image via Agence France-Presse @AFP, 26 September 2015
Clashes at Jerusalem holy site as Jewish holiday starts: image via Agence France-Presse @AFP, 28 September 2015
Lightning flashes around the statue of Christ the Redeemer at Corcovado hill in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: image via Agence France-Presse @AFP, 28 September 2015
The spectacular #SuperBloodmoon, seen around the world: image via Reuters Top News @Reuters, 28 September 2015
With few exceptions, the financially battered Greeks have shown their extraordinary humanity towards others less fortunate than themselves by the way in which they have helped so many homeless arriving on their shores--can we say the same for much of their other "partners" in the so-called European Union? I think not, for as your poem so accurately points out, they're sailing on luxury yachts and not rowing for their lives on overcrowded dinghies.
ReplyDeleteRefugees and migrants arrive on the shore of the Greek island of LesVos after crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey on Monday: photo by Aris Messinis/AFP, 28 September 2015... and so on!!
ReplyDeleteWonderful poem, especially
ReplyDeleteWe breathe the same
air, but only after you
have breathed it first
Where does Turkey fit into this whole terrible situation? So many of these refugees are coming from large, prosperous, Muslim Turkey, which shares a border with Syria. I am guessing Turkey is even more inhospitable than the Europeans.
Many thanks, friends. Vassilis, you're too right about the exceptional patience and generosity shown the refugees by most Greeks, overstressed government personnel included, through all this. In this respect, Greece has indeed stood out from its "partners" and "neighbours" in the European "community" -- to use a slew of terms whose meaning has been or is being stripped away by these extraordinary events, a historical tragedy the likes of which has not been seen for some three-quarters of a century.
ReplyDeleteWhen and if a true account ever emerges, my guess would be that the Greeks will come out looking like heroes; as indeed they've already been made to appear by their endurance of the pitiless treatment they've received from the bankers and other business pirates of that grand empty continental chamber of commerce which calls itself a European "Union".
Terry, thanks very much for the good word about the poem, the lines you've picked out are certainly the heart of it, they've been impossible to efface from the ancient dithering mind for several weeks now, seeming every day more apt to the occasion of all this suffering, sadly enough.
About Turkey, it's been strictly a transit zone for those escaping the wars and deprivation of the Middle East. There are a few Turks who've found a way to prosper off the refugee "trade", most notably the merciless people smugglers, but also, for example, the merchants vending necessary goods to those taking the boats, the clothing merchants of Izmir, in particular, supplier of most of those used life jackets piled up in a small mountain on the beach.
But to be "more inhospitable than the Europeans" would take some doing, on anybody's part. I give you, as a glaring instance, the government of Hungary. (That's okay, you can keep her, filed away in the black closet along with all those used life jackets.)