When the old immigrants came to America
they came on boats
No luxury liners or steamships these
The immigrants packed around cargo
tight as sardines
Many succumbed
to the horrible stench
of the hold below
to the diseases that proliferated
others grew sick and afraid
as many of them
scarcely children themselves
watched the ocean mercilessly break
over the bow
They wondered would they ever make it
On such a ship as these
my seventeen year old father
his yearning for America
exceeded only by
his longing for land
embarked from Italy
and disembarked
upon Ellis Island
He kissed the ground
he told me
not so happy to be in America
as to have left behind
the stormy sea
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