You Broke My Heart, Emma Lazarus
- At July 04, 2015
- By Bob Howe
- In Blog Posts, Poetry
12
Who is the most patriotic
American?
Is it me, born into a cocoon
Of postwar Americanness
and nurtured on a diet of Wonder Bread
and red, white, and blue TV
(good guys wear olive drab),
or is it The Other
–seduced by the Scylla and Charybdis
of opportunity and equality–
to cross oceans and deserts, to
ford brown rivers and bluff
hard-faced men at iron gates.
I’m not sure I know
What It Means to Be Free,
raised up staring at
Liberty’s back;
having to read Emma’s verse
in the funhouse mirror.
Bren Ortega Murphy
very powerful…thank you!
Bren Ortega Murphy
Also…splendid title
Ellen Datlow
thank you, Bob.
Patti Derr
This is brilliant . . . and heartbreaking! Have we become so jaded, so accustomed to our casual bigotry, that we assume that our birthright of freedom is for us alone? The essence of all things American can be seen in the eyes of a frightened child from El Salvador, if we are willing to look.
Peggy Jurado
Wow! This is amazing!!!
Rose Prescott
Fantastic Bob.
Thank you
Janet
A powerful poem and image, so worth sharing. When the gyre widens words can help hold us together.
Bob Howe
Thank you, Bren.
Bob Howe
Thanks so much, Janet. It does appear that he center cannot hold.
Bob Howe
Thanks very much, Ellen.
Bob Howe
Thanks for the kind words, Patti. I would say that many Americans suffer from compassion fatigue, except that many American’t don’t appear to exercise their powers of compassion enough t have fatigue.
Bob Howe
Peggy, thanks so much.