The Immigration
The poet, Donald Justice wrote a poem to his
father, where he says, "and struggle for your hand as you for mine,"
and later says, " Yet while I live, you do not wholly die." I
think of the father leaving the island to make his way in New York, Waterbury, Connecticut
and finally Boston where I knew him a few years only. I know nothing
about him really, only a few pictures with him hamming about on a beach with my
Uncle Pete or him standing erect in some Ahepan Greek parade, with
splendid uniform. I knew him not, but so it goes when all we have are a few
tidbits on which to build a life.
My mother came from the place too, to find a life of sorts as a widow in Boston
, a place she barely sensed really, as she never left the island in her mind.
She just imagined she was there when she took the trolley and went to the
job she loved as a stitcher in the raincoat factory.
So here is the little boy grown and a father himself, trying to tie the loose
ends together. Who went to the schools and learned to write American, to love
the poet Donald Justice as he loved his own Seferi and Kavafi. The little boy
who put on the man's tie before the dresser in the single room we lived in in
the attic at 22 Orchard Street. In some ways the little boy has the island
in him and never leaves it either.
Strange how one year I was there, I got crazy with wanting to leave the place
as I feared I would never get off the rock, what with the storms and the boats
which never came. It was so lonely and scary and I could barely wait to leave.
I can't understand that.
The point is the poet in me grew, the creative person, me, grew and my father
never died. Nor my mother. I just took their shoes as mine, their place as
mine. To compete with my Boston, my America, my Dover where I live. Where I go
downtown and know people and where I am heard to talk to the trees and to the
crows as well. It just sort of goes on. Nisiro is there. I am here but the two
are together. Amen, cousin.
For today I wish the poem on you, dear friends of our place, as I say hi to
Loula Diakomihalis and her pupils at the school, as I salute the poet of the
place, Kostas Mandouthakis, as I stroll the alleys near my mother's house, as I
salute the little plot of garden I own in the village, Mandraki, I hope to leave
to one of my grandchildren. It is simply called "kypos," in the
documents at the town hall. I remember my cousin Manos who could not talk
right and his little cafe in the town center who used to make my coffee. I am
with Mihali at the coffee house, called Paradisos, down near the water and his
unbounded kindness and patience. Here is the American boy, Pavlos Kambanys
talking, so please to listen up. Greek Heroic
From sea to shiny gazebo, in the land of Bounce and Fab and Glad came the
immigrants of the spirit, escaping endless toil and seeking endless life. To
America, Ameriky, to honey-landed dawns and sunny sunsets. Oh Texans, Chicago
and my Boston.