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Judy penned this poem years ago, reflecting on her own time living in another country. As she began to build a friendship with a refugee in Spokane this year, she began to see the universal themes of displacement and longing reflected in its verses.
Judy draws parallels between the donkey in Shrek, begging to be picked and the refugees who wait year after year – waiting to be picked to come to the U.S. In the chaos of displacement, God chooses to dwell with his people in the incarnation – the Christ Child laying on his tummy in the manger. Similarly, the pheasant, out of place in the winter, symbolizes the disorientation that refugees often experience while adjusting to a new culture – and yet it is God who gives them life and meaning…colors on the wind.
Pick Me! – Poem by Judy Palpant
A Christmas garland loops down
and across the buffet.
Its alternating blue and gold stars hang in the air
shining above
the Bolivian creche where
the solitary Christ Child lies on his tummy
wearing only
a red and white polka-dot diaper.
Draped up and over the top shelf,
The garland is secured by Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables.
The miserable ones
like the solitary female pheasant standing alone in the snow.
Still as a statue in all her plainness,
without motion or emotion, she waits
along with all exiles
to be picked up
like a yo-yo in the hand of a master—
her strung out
dead weight
suddenly snapped into action—
transformed into lithe and lively
colors on the wind.