Dirge for an Immigrant

Dirge for an Immigrant
grief flew
across the Atlantic on an isolated journey
to plummet down like a dysfunction
into the heart of a nation of stripes and
stars of promise
beautiful land, 美國,
that’s what we call the soaring landscapes,
tumbling hills tapped like monsoon water flowing
into green-grass pastures,
just a mile away are effervescent desires,
a high-rise hedonistic Hail Mary
for those back East who the rich ones called farmers
back home, they scrambled for
plows and axes, afternoon sun or dusky rain
a trace of dirt underneath fingernails,
hoping that it would promise grain
when mouths in a family were ravenous
but there is nothing but bark to peel from elmwood,
no bite, only the gratuitous grit that
begs a migration
so a 爺爺 packs his bags in 1849,
shuts his suitcase full of pickaxes
tool primed to chip away
at stone for months on end, waiting
for that golden glimmer of gluttony