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“Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” Emma Lazarus, 1883
What made them leave their native lands by boat?
Some heard fierce military thunder, saw
A blood moon rise in new duplicitous
Skies gone gunmetal gray, ruth camouflaged.
Some farmers ached from death’s cruel carpet ride,
Drought, famine, floods, the disintegration
Of dreams, all gone, one at a time.
Some faced more personal oppression: skin
Tone, birthright’s claims denied, religious foes,
Recognizing that falsehoods were designed
To dominate. Truth’s weapons were inert.
Some knew their powerlessness to outgrow
A humble past or lifelong poverty.
Approaching Ellis Island, side by side,
Examining our Lady Liberty,
Dropping an arm’s warm anchor happily
Around each other’s neck, they sense change
Is close along with assimilation — —
The circularity of homeland’s quest.
LindaAnn LoSchiavo: Native New Yorker. Elgin Award winner. Nominated for The Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, Ippy, Firecracker, etc. Member: BFS, HWA, SFPA, Dramatists Guild. Recent titles: “Vampire Ventures,” “Apprenticed to the Night,” “Always Haunted: Hallowe’en Poems.”
https://VampireVenturesPoems.com
LindaAnn Literary: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHm1NZIlTZybLTFA44wwdfg
THE CITY KEY 