Month: July 2018

An Essay on America

I meant to do this post on July 4th – but I was in camp with very little time to compose any thoughts.  But there is never a bad time for a patriotic post so I figured I would do it now.  Would be nice if something could unite us all and drive us out by the millions to celebrate the way the World Cup sent the French to the Champs Elyse.  What absolute fun to forget your differences briefly and just celebrate a well- deserved victory.  I know it doesn’t seem like it, but we do have reasons to celebrate every day.  Towards that end, I want to share one on my sister’s college responses to a prompt about inclusion in America.  I think she answered it brilliantly.

“It was late – a lot later than we expected when the bus finally rolled out of the parking lot into a dark, and surprisingly cold, Florida night to start the trip back to Orlando. A proud group of LHP students sat in the bus that evening.  For two grueling days we had competed in a Speech and Debate tournament in Tampa and were taking home some hard-won trophies.

As most of my teammates drifted off to sleep, my mind started to mull over the question of acceptance and inclusion in a country that tries hard every single day to live up to its own promise to itself – and it occurred to me that this bus was the promise of America, the America that perhaps the founding fathers dreamed of. The driver – a man with a mission – led the way; behind him sat the coaches and chaperones, still chaperoning, navigating, and making sure we stayed on track. I could imagine the aged, ever-watchful gaze of the founding fathers upon them.

Behind them sat a vibrant, dynamic melting pot – a veritable “salad bowl” of students, a young team of various teenage years, of more ethnicities than any founding father dared to hope for, of individual dreams and common hopes. We were all recent immigrants or children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great grandchildren of recent immigrants. As our passions for our competition and trophies flared, our ethnicities faded – our common goal melted away the differences in our skin colors, our religions, our aromas of homemade food, and the accents of our ancestors upon our tongues.

I was keenly aware that despite every criticism, this bus – a microcosm of the world – could not have been rolling down a highway in any other country in this world. Perhaps it is naïve of me to equate this bus to the promise of America – but weren’t the founding fathers just naïve young men when they rolled down a revolutionary highway with nothing but a dream?

For four years, since I made my first competition piece on immigrants, and started to explore my place in America, I have waited to attend a course like the —. I am excited to engage, to share, listen and learn from others in my class. I am ready, and my generation is ready, to continue fulfilling the promise of America.”

I think her response is brilliant. I loved the comparison and the feeling of pride and belonging.

A-7713

He carried these tattoed numbers on his arm for a lifetime, and on this day ltwo years ago, Elie Wiesel, an Auschwitz survivor, died at the age of 87. He took the holocaust out of history books, and with his powerful words, seared it into our conscience. I wrote this poem after reading his book Night, in which he talks about the last time he saw his mother. 

Sparrow

In the cold winter months
with moonless skies,
She flew down from the clouds
to sit on my shoulder
and see me through the night.
 
I felt her gently
through the tattered fabric
that covered my shoulders and
Striped its way down to my knees;
a vain barrier between skin and snow.
 
The first time She came
was when I saw Mama last.
They dragged Mama away,
her feet making long tracks
in pure winter snow.
 
Mama’s body was theirs to kill,
Her soul was God’s alone.
She came from the blackness of the smoke
to light the fire in my soul
and soften the hunger in my belly.
 
 
My little sparrow held me up
when I was too weak to stand.
While they starved my body
She nourished my soul,
and stopped me from dying.
 
I had to live
for Mama, for papa, and Elsa too.
I was the fragment that remained
from the fabric of our lives.
The thread was mine to weave.
 
Night after night
She sat on my shoulder
to see me through till dawn,
and when I wanted to fly with her
She wanted me to stay.
 
When finally the gates of hell opened
And the air was ours to breathe
And the land was ours to roam  
It was then, and only then
that Mama stopped coming to me at night.
 
 

(Image courtesy of Baltimore Jewish life website).