Under the Fig Tree

Your tears are not the only outward sign of your deepest pain Your need is desperate Your words are filled with horrors

You scramble to fill a bag with warm clothes for your children For your baby

Your house is cold

Your cupboards are bare Your plumbing is leaking Your children are crying, unruly, aching to get out But this cold room is the only safety you know How can you start again here? Your life has been torn apart Senselessly

Your son is in a different land

Kept apart by distance, money, weather, borders By governments Those in their warm clothes and heated houses

Those who have a responsibility to care They have failed their duty to you They plot and plan, distanced from the horrors Why is this world so unfair? Why you?

You live in a land that is barely welcoming A place that is now your ‘home’ “How can this place be home?” It doesn’t feel safe

How can you possibly process the death of your child, your son? You have other children to care for, a family to hold together Your mother, your sisters, your aunties, your community are not here You are alone

Isolated

You long for a place to belong in this strange wintery land For someone to hear you, to see your struggle, to care

“I hear whispers about people who care who provide warm clothes who offer a warm drink

where children can fill their bellies

A place where people like me can find community with others who have faced the same horrors a warm place, a family Free from discrimination

Who are these people and why do they care?

“There is something different about them. They are defined by love. How can I know this love? Where is this place? Could this be a place where I am accepted? Could I find community here, are there people who will care about me? Could I find a hot drink, food? Would they be this generous? Will I find light from the darkness here?”

My friend you are welcome here come and meet the one who cares more deeply than any human to find shelter under the

Fig Tree

Rochelle wrote and illustrated this poem during her short-term placement with refugees in West Asia.

Name has been changed.