Immigrant

Immigrant

In the year 1900, Chicago was the city with the second highest number of Swedes after Stockholm, the capital of Sweden.~wikipedia

A hundred years ago

he stands on the quay

small in his winter clothes

the boy bruised with

old men’s hopes, starved on

uncles’ dreams, ragdoll boy

who must change everything

blinking into wind freshened

by an icemelt ocean

squinting at tomorrow.
He's tumbled forward,

cheap goods into steerage,

clutching everything there is,
a ticket, his other shirt, a bar of soap;

for wrap a blanket of fog,

for comfort, wet cheeks and his

mother's goodbye on

a rough linen square, tucked in

yesterday morning’s pocket,

too young to know every departure

wears an arrival under it’s coat.
He thought he’d had 

a bellyfull of tongues, 

mumbles of better life,

nonsense new beginnings

until they gave him 
the silence of that deep

blue voicelessness clearer

than any words, whispering
darkness come dripping

by the board bed to
read him to sleep with

leviathan’s salt breath
and disperse the makeshift
ectoplasmic home exhaled
by heart's hard wish.

All his life to come

he would hate the water

that gave the ship its wings, the
feel of slick shoes, 

cheeks wet with tears

long goodbyes and lying

promises blown on white steam from

rough pitcoal to where I stand now,

cheeks wet from my own departures

the only difference between us 

that I am naked 
under my coat.

December 2011

This poem is for my grandfather Ragnar Carlson, who in the early 1900's made the long sea journey to New York City and then by rail to Chicago, from Gothenburg, Sweden, alone at the age of eight. Like many immigrants at that time, he traveled steerage, which was the cheapest accommodation. Below you can see a picture of him and his dog taken a few years after his arrival.

Posted for Real Toads

My dear friend, guide and support through the wilds of the poetry blogosphere, Fireblossom of Shay's Word Garden, is hosting a prompt today at Real Toads on arrivals and departures. Sorry not to use one of your very cool photos, Shay, but this one has been in the works a long time and I'd already illustrated it.

Also posted for  Meeting the Bar:Evoking Emotion  at dVersePoets Pub
Note: I don't do critique, and by participating in this prompt, I am not asking for it, just thought the poem fit the theme. 

Header image: Emigrants on the Wilson Line steamship Ariosto in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Old postcard 
Footer image1: SS Hibernia, Anchor Line, 1868 Nov. 24, foundered 700 miles from the Irish coast as a result of accident to propeller shaft, 78 lives lost
Old engraving Copyright © 2011 Heritage-Ships.
Footer image2: Ragnar & Dog, circa 1920  

Copyright Verse Escape, 2012