Jo, Jon Floating on Jonah’s Whale
Contents of the Whale’s Belly, Grounded Off Race Point, Provincetown, Cape Cod, June 2003
by Maj Ragain
In Response to Jo, Jon Floating on Jonah’s Whale
reading by Louise Phipps-Senft
The Lord had prepared a great fish
to swallow up Jonah’s children,
to carry them down to the bottoms
of mountains, the weeds wrapped
round their heads.
Such was the Lord’s anger
at his servant’s disobedience.
The whale breached the Lord’s bidding
and carried Jo and Jon ashore,
wallowing through the marshes
onto the beach,
crushed by the mass
which buoyed him through the cold
cathedrals of the deep.
The children dream in the brightening air,
guarded by the talismen of play.
A yellow straw lion, his sphinx eye
burning its hex, crouches at Jon’s head.
Swing happy monkeys,
pretzel Watusi dancer gangle the wall and hump hot racket.
The purple gatekeeper glowers
from his station.
The whale is no longer the leviathan,
the Lord’s shaker of the underworld.
He has been claimed by the tiny ones,
their smiling faces tattooed above
his sleepless, fading eye.
He is stranded in the sand walkers’ world,
holding, held, sinking deeper
with each small breath
by Maj Ragain
In Response to Jo, Jon Floating on Jonah’s Whale
reading by Louise Phipps-Senft
The Lord had prepared a great fish
to swallow up Jonah’s children,
to carry them down to the bottoms
of mountains, the weeds wrapped
round their heads.
Such was the Lord’s anger
at his servant’s disobedience.
The whale breached the Lord’s bidding
and carried Jo and Jon ashore,
wallowing through the marshes
onto the beach,
crushed by the mass
which buoyed him through the cold
cathedrals of the deep.
The children dream in the brightening air,
guarded by the talismen of play.
A yellow straw lion, his sphinx eye
burning its hex, crouches at Jon’s head.
Swing happy monkeys,
pretzel Watusi dancer gangle the wall and hump hot racket.
The purple gatekeeper glowers
from his station.
The whale is no longer the leviathan,
the Lord’s shaker of the underworld.
He has been claimed by the tiny ones,
their smiling faces tattooed above
his sleepless, fading eye.
He is stranded in the sand walkers’ world,
holding, held, sinking deeper
with each small breath
Jo, Jon Floating on Jonah’s Whale
oil on canvas
38 x 60”
2003 and 2014
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oil on canvas
38 x 60”
2003 and 2014
Damen, Jessica & Ragain, Maj, Home To Sargasso Sea-A Long Journey of Loving Collaboration, exhibition catalog, June 1-July 14, 2018, KSU Downtown Gallery, Kent OH, Kent State University School of Art Collection and Galleries and the Wick Poetry Center with support from the Ohio Arts Council. pp 28-29