[Critique Group 2] submission for March 25 critique session, 357 words

[Alice Massa]

Early "Happy Spring" to Group 2 writer friends!


     Please find both pasted below and attached a 357-word poem of 66 
lines.  While some or all of you may be able to figure out or will know 
the Spanish words, I will note below a couple of Spanish phrases 
incorporated into this poem:

un sendero de lagrimas:

trail of tears (Unfortunately, my current keyboard and computer cannot 
make the accent over the first "a" of "lagrimas.")

Lagrimas de la Libertad:

tears of Liberty

In the print version, readers would see the Spanish words in italic 
print.  Additionally, I have used a word which I coined: "hopemakers."


Talk with you on both Sunday and next Thursday!

Take care--Alice


* * *

*The Immigrant’s Password*

Poem by Alice Jane-Marie Massa

Who will build a Statue of Liberty on the Rio Grande?

Gather together all of the workers

who were building “The Wall,”

craftsmen, and artisans too:

let them erect a new beckoning

Lady of Liberty.

Then, promise you will simultaneously build

a new, modern Ellis Island--

with no cages attached.

Shouldn’t we be able to build

a complex much better than Ellis Island?

If we are to welcome guests--immigrants--

let us welcome them with dignity, hope, and home.

Let us welcome them at the hour

when all plans are brought to fruition.

with our lofty ambitions,

let us not become accomplices to Coyotes,

let us not move so rapidly

that we set up more failures,

more forgotten people, more lost children

than successful hopemakers, dreamcatchers.

Who created “The Trail of Tears”?

On that “Trail of Tears,”

the government gave an iron pot

to one Cherokee grandmother,

who later bequeathed that iron pot

to her daughter.

On the new land,

the daughter became a mother

who grew flowers in the old iron pot

that had survived “The Trail of Tears.”

That Cherokee mother gave to her daughter

not just the flowers from the government-issued cooking pot,

but the poetry of liberty.

That daughter became

Poet Laureate of the United States of America--

Joy Harjo.

Now, instead of a Trail of Tears

from state to state,

we witness/un sendero de lagrimas/

from another America to this America.

Within my veins stream

the hope, determination, imagination

of immigrants.

Within my heart beat

the folk songs of immigrants.

Etched onto the soles of my shoes

are the footprints of my immigrant grandparents.

Folded into my hands

are the prayers and petitions

of all immigrants who have reached for freedom.

Who among us can whisper

the immigrant’s password?

To these people who long to hold onto a new land,

can you say:

“Wait.”

“Be patient.”

“Return in six months, my friend.”

On the news, I hear the statistics:

4200 . . . 400 each day.

Then, I think of one family,

one person,

one child,

one password.

Hope.

/Lagrimas de la libertad/.

number of words:357

number of poetic lines:66

March 18, 2021, Thursday:for Group 2 critique session on March 25, 2021, 
Thursday

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