They have renovated Ellis Island to its natural state.
The old bricks have been returned to their original look of that period and date.
Once the halls were filled with spidery webs and dusty memories of the throngs that passed there from distant lands.
Little babes wrapped in cocoon type blankets and old weather worn folks in soiled and worn clothes that matched their tired faces.
Through Ellis Island they passed with dignity though put through many trials and disgraces.
Grandpa came through those gates from Italy hoping for a better life in the shelter of that Grand Lady who said with silent lips...."Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
He reached for the golden rod of freedom that She handed down to those humble masses though tired, homeless and poor.
The other day I was searching for the names of those that passed through the gates of Ellis Island during that period in time.
Elmer meant to birth some butterflies
He brought home cocoons from school.
He tucked them into the refrigerator,
His father called him a fool.
It was in Italy, Tuscany, to be exact,
When he fell in love with butterflies,
“Stemless floating flowers,”
Was what the poet decried.
Golden rods were abounding
On the lovely Italian hills,
Elmer was a sensitive sort,
With a joy that butterflies filled.
He sat on an old brick wall
Wouldn’t even go out to play,
Monarchs, Bluewings so jewel like
Completed Elmer’s day.
Back home the cocoons were ready
To do what they were about,
Elmer awaited anxiously,
For the jewels to make their way out.
Poor Elmer, all he found one day,
Was a pile of silk, they were gone,
He was pulling apart the spidery threads,
When his father right then came home.
Look, son, what I got for you,
And he gave him a butterfly net,
“I found it on e-bay, for you have waited so long”
Elmer sobbed with such tears father’s shirt was wet.
The story’s not as sad as you think,
For father and son held each together,
His father’s love for Elmer assured,
He could face any of life’s weathers.
© By Norma (Twi1ite@sbcglobal.net)
Walking The Pathway
walking the path way of old bricks
my spidery veined old legs
still holding me up straight
thinking upon a time
one night in Italy
when I walked nude
into my lovers arms
his beautiful body
glistening
as a golden rod in the moonlight
in passion we become one
tightly wrapped as if in a cocoon
I chuckled thinking
I could have it all once more
if I found one old Italian on Ebay
© By Dreaming Pat (DreamingPat@aol.com)
Walking The Pathway
Winter in a Cocoon
Let's spend this winter in a cocoon.
Just you and me and the moon.
We'll build a room out of broken sticks,
Held together with duct tape and old bricks.
We can hide in a spidery basement.
In the south of Italy where I never went.
All wound up in our little pod,
We can decorate with golden rod.
"Where'd I get this idea?" You say?
I looked and found it on E-bay.
© By Swampetta (SWAMPETTA@aol.com)
