“Language, identity, place, home: these are all
of a piece -
just different elements of belonging and not belonging.” —Jhumpa
Lahiri
“Hope
and fear cannot occupy the same space. Invite one to stay.” —Maya Angelou
The
shifting winds of February flow like the diaspora that is roiling throughout
the world.
From the
mean streets in Syria, Yemen, Honduras, and El Salvador to Sub-Saharan African and
the plains of Afghanistan families have been uprooted. War, threats of
violence, political and religious persecution, climate change, lack of
livelihood resources, and natural disasters have forced people to leave their
homeland in search of a better life.
Like
genetic anomalies finding homes within human cells, displaced refugees move
with uncertainty. Food, clothing, shelter, and language barriers all become
obstacles in a quest for sanctuary.
Diaspora by Jeff Key
A gust of wind, a coursing bloodstream—conduits of a
continual diaspora, scattering organisms of every size and shape on a random journey down the path of natural selection.
Instructions tucked into the nucleus of a body's cells, written
in the language of the DNA molecule, forcing a wrong turn on the on the genetic road map—
zika, ebola, malaria, cancer.
zika, ebola, malaria, cancer.
Spores set forth by a mother fungus cast their fate to the prevailing breeze—from the jungles of the Congo to a new colony in the mountains of Peru.
A new location somewhere on chromosome seven—eaten by a spider, deposited on a desert rock—a torn blanket in the shadow of a barbed wire fence—a tenement basement with an unfamiliar tongue.
The dispossessed, wrested from the sleep of night, thrust on an unwelcome expedition to an unknown destination—roots torn, origins dissolving, destiny declared.
The dispossessed, wrested from the sleep of night, thrust on an unwelcome expedition to an unknown destination—roots torn, origins dissolving, destiny declared.
