In Search Of
By Mia Schilling Grogan
The Adriana sank, more than 600 desperate lives lost –
migrants in search of things some people have.
I read the post-mortem in the paper, online, even knowing
the awful end: people could have saved them,
but in some crucible of greed and lack of will
and stubbornness and error,
we did not.
What I could not have predicted -- or should have? –
was the ad an algorithm chose to adorn the page:
Princess cruises to Greece.
Sail the Mediterranean in 2024!
Embedded videos of dancing on sunlit decks popped up
each time I scrolled further down
to read about the boy,
17 years old,
who died saying some final words
to his young cousin, who lived to speak them.
They all wanted something.
Is it what the web thinks I want:
to be distracted from the harsh truth that on this planet,
some of us cruise on ships brimming with frenzied pleasure
(or its simulacrum) while others grip railings
and lurch through treacherous seas?
Is the algorithm right? It may be.
What I spend my time searching for matters.
There is, in fact, no need to search at all,
unless I’m searching for the way to live with less,
unless we’re searching for the way to walk together.
This boy said, Didn’t I tell you
we were going to die? Didn’t I tell you
we were already dead?
His words survive to wake us in the night.
What we spend our time searching for matters.
Artist Statement
The Instrumentum Laboris for the meeting of the Synod of Bishops and others this October includes worksheets with questions for prayerful consideration, such as this one: Along the synodal path, what efforts have been made to welcome the voice of the poorest and to integrate their contribution? What have we learned about how to support the belonging and participation of the most marginalised? What needs to happen to enable their greater involvement in our walking together and how do we let their voices question our way of doing things when it is insufficiently inclusive of them? This poem responds to a recent tragic event, asking questions about both individual and corporate complicity in the structures that create global inequality. The Church’s historic witness and continued discernment of a preferential option for the poor has helped to plant these questions in my heart and I look to a synodal church to strengthen our resolve to listen ever more attentively and respond more directly to the cry of the poor.
About the Artist
Mia Schilling Grogan is an associate professor of English at Chestnut Hill College. She is a medievalist who specializes in hagiography and women’s spiritual writing. Her poems have appeared in many journals including America, First Things, and Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry. In 2023 she was pleased to win third place in the Catholic Literary Arts Sacred Poetry Contest, a Laureate’s Choice award in the Maria Faust Sonnet Contest, and an Honorable Mention in the Fare Forward Poetry Competition.