Highways and Byways: The Dreamers

By Maik Strosahl

I really enjoyed Shirley Skufca Hickman’s poem “The Old Songs,” from March 5. It got me exploring immigration from the early 1900s compared with today. Spent some time digging into Ellis Island, where some of my ancestors came from Europe. My father’s family came over in the early 1900s, his father from Germany, his mother from Sweden. My mother was born in a small town in Germany on the Polish border. She learned Russian as her second language and only learned English when she came back with my father after his stint in the Army. I let my mind follow their path, then the path that some take to come to our borders today. My, how things have changed.
    Footnotes give the translations of lines in foreign tongues.


Ellis, oh Ellis,
do you see me?
I am coming on a steamer,
I am coming as a dreamer
a man, a woman, a child
homeless not hopeless,
with eyes cast
from these dark seas
upon the torch of Liberty.

Oh Ellis, Ellis,
can you hear me?
Ich bin aus Deutschland.¹
Från Sverige här.²
Tá mé Éireannach.³
Wǒmen chūshēng zài zhōngguó shānqū.⁴
Ya rodom iz Rossii-matushki,⁵
singing our songs of sorrow
for the land of our birth
and those who waved goodbye
as we began our journey
to start again in America,
learning a new melody,
teaching our children.

Ellis, oh Ellis,
your call has grown quiet,
your open arms withdrawn,
your island closed,
your dreams now guarded,
yet we can still see you
shining bright,
we will keep calling to you,
a chorus asking
for the hope you once offered.
We have come these many miles,
we have braved this trek,
paying everything—
anything—
to the coyotes,
my sister crossing the river,
my brother over the wall,
and I through this narrow tunnel.

We are the tired,
we are the poor,
the huddled masses.

Oh Ellis, Ellis,
can you hear us?
Can you see us coming to you?
______________

1. “I am from Germany.”
2. “From Sweden here.”
3. “I am Irish.”
4. “We were born in the mountains of China.” The line uses a translator's pronunciation rendering of “我們出生於中國的山區.”
5. “I come from Mother Russia.” The line uses a translator's pronunciation rendering of “Я родом из россии-матушки.”

Copyright © 2021 by Maik Strosahl Michael E. Strosahl has focused on poetry for over twenty years, during which time he served a term as President of the Poetry Society of Indiana. He relocated to Jefferson City, Missouri, in 2018 and currently co-hosts a writers group there.