Praise the Old Country Immigrants

Praise the Old Country Immigrants

I kept my hand over my heart as a Pledge

to parents from the Old Country refusing 

to scrap the foreign tongue of Italy.

I spoke for them, swaying across

a bridge of culture, interpreting

for Pa, suggesting he curse, soto voce in Campania dialect

the Bastardo though he probably was starved.

He tried to bribe the boss for Pa’s job—crane

operator picking up and plunking down

coal for the United Illuminating company. 

Depression. No streets lined with gold.

Parish priest visited with advice:

Don’t trust Jews and blacks.

Why Ma, I asked, about the homily

as her flying hands chopped fresh basil,

tomatoes lush from her Edenic garden.

She stretched dough over her palms,

layered feelings into a lasagna to comfort

our neighbor, the new widow

whose black hands opened her door to us.

Praise our capacity for communion.

On my 16th birthday, we three traveled to Ellis Island. 

Sixteen, the same age Pa crowded

into steerage on a colossal passage to America.

A freakish fall ejects him overboard. 

He emerges, rescued by unknown hands.

My camera clicked white lightning 

in praise of the Statue of Liberty’s high hand.

That seems eons ago. Tonight I finger the browning

photo. On TV, news glares,

flares human chaos and infamy.

When did the dollar-bill green Lady’s

lure to prosper in the New World turn to greed?

Can the stalwart torch ward off atrocities? 

Lady Liberty let not the huddled masses turn to ash.

Through the ocean let gray-blue swell.

Let hope gleam.

Author: Geri Radasci

Photo credit: Laurenz Heymann on Unsplash