Saul Bennett
Sea Dust (I)
Aboard a worn vessel in Upper New York Bay,
one dusk, 1901
Herewith I bequeath to myself a virgin
canvas expanding
with Grandma emerging
from steerage, with siblings
shlepped at 17 up from the Argentine,
five years there awaiting
America papers,
landed poor at Entre Rios from some
vague oppressive Russo-Pole border portion.
Below deck so deep how distant
Grandma the moon?
Sanitary state? Sects co-mingle? Hot meals nu?
Yes on easing near
that most superior
mother in the Upper Bay
at, say, a poet's dusk,
pouring shouts toward heaven's
southern tip ahead,
your words - pray may they grace me
from the dust of a hundred years' separation,
Jew-scattered dust in translation:
Big - big! Mameh! So big!