I am not a migrant. I am a first-generation love immigrant who followed her heart -and the man who was holding it captive. I came to America from a wealthy West-European country, a land that granted fantastic healthcare to everybody. I didn’t know what co-pay was, could get my teeth fixed, my eyes checked, and had a yearly physical from an early age.
Fox Newsers may cause the demise
Of their viewers with anti-vax cries.
“It’s my body,” they whine.
“It’s my choice!” Yet they’re fine
With abortion rights cut down to size.
Every time I read another article about voter restrictions a shiver runs down my spine. I do wonder when I will fall under the restrictions? When I am old and fragile? When I no longer stand with ease? When I have the wrong friends, or belong to the wrong party? When I am still just a woman? When I have the wrong color, or freckles might be outlawed. When I am retired, or too young to die?
And if you are really quiet and listen closely, you will hear the world laughing at us and let’s be honest, we deserve it!
Besides the obvious technological and architectural advances, only one thing has really changed between our generations:
We have memorized America,
how it was born and who we have been and where.
In ceremonies and silence we say the words,
telling the stories, singing the old songs.
We like the places they take us. Mostly we do.
The great and all the anonymous dead are there.
We know the sound of all the sounds we brought.
The rich taste of it is on our tongues.
But where are we going to be, and why, and who?
The disenfranchised dead want to know.
We mean to be the people we meant to be,
to keep on going where we meant to go.
People always tell me, “Don’t put the cart
before the horse,” which is curious
because I don’t have a horse.
Is this some new advancement in public shaming—
repeatedly drawing one’s attention
to that which one is currently not, and never
has been, in possession of?
On a railroad car in your America,
I made the acquaintance of a man
who sang a life-song with these lyrics:
“Do whatever you can/ to avoid
becoming a roofing man.”
A very thought-provoking post from a blogger who I just found (or did he find me?) A post that is not just well written but also gave me a whirlwind…
