The Immigrant<\/p>\n
He came, an immigrant, my father\u2019s father, ……………………………………..<\/span>A man could live a life <\/p>\n “The Immigrant” is reprinted from New to North America: Writings by Immigrants, Their Children and Grandchildren<\/em>\u00a0(1997).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Long-time Seattle resident, Judith Yarrow<\/a> is a poet, artist, editor. She has published two poetry chapbooks, The Immigrant<\/em> <\/a>and Borderlands<\/em>. Her poems have appeared in Cicada<\/em>, Clear-cut<\/em>: An Anthology of Seattle Writers, Duckabush Journal, Edge: International Arts Interface,<\/em> Bellowing Ark<\/em>, North Country Anvil, <\/em>and elsewhere. She lives with her husband in Southeast Seattle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Immigrant He came, an immigrant, my father\u2019s father, to these lush valleys, marshlands, streams, the hills glacier-scraped to subsoil glacier-covered with stones, gravel, and silt. On land grown over with fir and alder, he found timber for house and … Continue reading
\nto these lush valleys, marshlands, streams,
\nthe hills glacier-scraped to subsoil
\nglacier-covered with stones, gravel, and silt.
\nOn land grown over with fir and alder, he found
\ntimber for house and barn, wood for cooking
\nin the dark mornings and long, dark afternoons
\nof rainy winters, green and damp as any
\nNorwegian spring, a paradise.
\n………………………………………<\/span>With work
\nand luck, a lot of work\u2014and luck is what you make it\u2014
\na man could raise a family here, build
\na farm to last through all the generations.
\nNo more beatings at the hand of the sea, no more
\nrenting land, no more logging for the bosses.
\nA wife, children, beds filling room
\nafter room, and neighbors near
\nenough to help but not to crowd.<\/p>\n
\nand forget how things change beyond calculation:
\nchildren grown, and gone, the barn slowly
\nmelting into the earth of its timbers,
\nfamily and farm both long altered,
\nhis hard-shelled dreams now gone to weed,
\nthough he\u2019d find traces still of what he planted.<\/p>\n