Safe Oil

~~The poem ~‘Safe Oil’~ is dedicated to all who have lost loved ones to ‘death oil’ and depicts part of my experience as an immigrant in England. Allegory is used throughout. The phrase ‘death oil’ sprang from hearing, as a child, of a fellow Indian immigrant who had been killed in a local factory. He had apparently fallen into some hot oil or similar substance.
      For me ‘death oil’ signifies the sacrifices people like my parents made in leaving their ancestral home of India, some of which they will probably never be aware. It also symbolises life without Jesus.
‘Safe Oil’ symbolises Life with Jesus even through the trials and sacrifices.
      There are references to the lucrative trade in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries between Europe, Africa and the Americas. This trade is renowned to be highly significant in the creation of Britain's wealth and the growth of its sea power and ports. Reference is made to the African slave, so called, “trade” during this period.
      Reference is also made to the migrant workforce in this
country of the 1950'S and the 1960's, of which my father played a part. I have used myself to symbolise objects, other individuals, or groups of people. No reference whatsoever is made to reincarnation that is totally against the teachings of Jesus.
      My understanding of the scriptures, from “Genesis” to “Revelation” is that God does not seek to abolish culture, however you may define 'culture', but to redeem it in His newness.
So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!                                                                                                                                                   (2 Corinthians 5:17)

      ‘Amma ji’ is my Mother. ‘Papa ji’ is my Father.

Crown came from India
Passing through Malaya
Dollar came from Africa
Passing through Jamaica
Together with the 1960's
Our story had just begun
The years when everyone sang.

Shipped to England from Singapore
Papa ji's face so worried
Carrying me down on his side
Amma ji feeling ill
Afraid of what they would find
And to whom could she confide.

Corn on the cobs
Left glowing in the market sun
I've been placed in a fridge
Rats screeching and crawling!
Not much fun.

One said “Nigger!”
The other said “Wog!”
They each said
“Go back home
To where you came from!”

Did you forget you asked me here first?
I worked in the factories
And fell in death oil
I worked in the factories
And lost my eye in the toil.

Hey, a long time ago, so they all say
I was some jewel, some metal money
Which you brought back from India
From Africa, and from many
But now I'm a human without a penny
Can't I mean more than that metal money?

Abandoned before the television that gave me the blues
Famine isn't so hard here
Here we can keep our heads
At least that is what they said
But do you really want to bet?
And money that’s due, some still want to get.

At first Crown cried
And Dollar hit back
But then came Tree
From Eden
We finally got a Life.

Don't hack at me
At my roots don't hack
If you hack at my roots
Do you really expect to get fruit?

So you collect me some money
You collect me some clothes
You collect me toys
But you never come home.

Forever grateful for these gifts of your care
But can't I mean more than the charity box
At which they all stare?

My Bible says that Jesus bought me
From every tribe
From every language and people and nation
He bought me
So knock on my door
I will let you in
And from this New Kingdom of mine
Your hands with pearls I will fill
But is this giving my pearls to the swine?

How I long to go home
My heart's desire
Then would so many work in death oil?

My blood could boil
But I want some sealing, ‘Safe Oil’.

And why would anyone ever measure
My problems as too small
And my agonies ever anyone bore
Since your compassion, my dear Jesus
You never measure
And your mercy never ending
New each morning, for evermore.

So why are you so bitter?
That my people gave you demons?
Why did you take them?
Perhaps you didn't have ‘Safe Oil’.

From this world, I haven't any silver 
I haven't any gold
I will give you what I have
To this I am sold
I give you my Jesus
Pouring out His very ‘Safe Oil’.
                                                        © Miryam Ruth Nahar 2005