Forgotten but not lost
Staying at home to stop the spread of coronavirus has
spurred many of us to straighten, clean out, and take stock of what surrounds
us. While purging and tossing, I came upon a folder of writing, most of which I
had forgotten I had written. I don’t know how that is possible, but believe me, it is. I am sharing one of those lost
writings with you in this blog.
I promise I won’t bore you with another discovered
piece -- a history of newspapers in Logan County, W.Va. where I was born and
lived for two decades. I knew I had written the history (I remember spending
hours and hours going through microfilm) for a college course at Marshall
University, but without computer storage, I thought it was gone forever.
The piece I am sharing was preserved on a sheet of typing
paper (that is what we used to call it) that looks as if it was typed on a
manual typewriter. There is no date but
my name is printed at the bottom, and it includes my married name so it had to
be written after 1968. I would estimate
it was composed somewhere in the 1970s and early 1980s. I started using computers in the 1980s.
I do reference in the piece that more than 75 years
ago my family came to the U.S. My
grandfathers arrived around 1910 so that puts the origin of this piece in the mid-1980s.
After hearing this is Immigrant Heritage Month, I feel
this gives it a little bit of a news peg and some relevance to the times. Plus,
the recent DACA ruling by the Supreme Court also adds to the timeliness of this
blog.
The poem (it appears in stanzas) or prose (it reads in
complete sentences, no rhyming) does depict my family and how they regarded
this country and the symbol of the Statue of Liberty.
The Lady
There she stands
in the harbor
in all her majesty
a sign, a symbol
of freedom to all
who come to her shores.
Over 75 years ago
my family arrived
ready for a new life
full of new hopes and dreams.
There she stood
with extended arms
welcoming them to America,
the promised land
of opportunity
where the streets
were paved with gold.
Fear and doubt
must have engulfed
them as they
first gazed
on this land
guarded by the lady.
But there was
no turning back
no second thoughts
as they embarked
on a new life.
From the lady,
they moved
through the lines
on Ellis Island
to New York City
to finally settle
in the hills of W.Va.
The coal fields gave
them jobs, homes,
a chance to survive
in a new land
with a new language
and with people
who looked not
like them.
They worked, struggled,
learned, and survived.
There were good times;
there were bad
in this new land
they had chosen.
The families grew,
the jobs got better,
the language became
less of a barrier,
and the new ways
were less strange.
Prized citizenship
was earned by those
who studied and
learned the history
of the new and
exciting land.
And now here I stand
a product of this chain
of naturalization
gazing into the face
of the same lady.
She still welcomes
all to America
the land
where people come
together to form
a
nation like no other
in the world
with the lady there
always watching
and guarding.
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