The ship that took my mother to Ellis Island
Eighty-three years ago was named "The Mercy."
She remembers trying to eat a banana
without first peeling it and seeing her first orange
in the hands of a young Scot, a seaman
who gave her a bite and wiped her mouth for her
with a red bandana and taught her the word,
"orange," saying it patiently over and over. Read more about The Mercy
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
By Robert Frost
Read more about Because It Snowed.>Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
To my almost certain knowledge, I learned this song as a small child as we did go over the river and through the wood to grandfather's house for Thanksgiving. Grandfather's house would have been the Home Place, as my grandparents called it. And the sleigh was an automobile of an early 1940's vintage. And it was Iowa, so there was snow. There was probably pumpkin pie. I don't remember much else, but this song has always meant Thanksgiving to me and not just because of the title. There was a river, and there was a wood, and there was certainly pumpkin pie. Read more about Over the River
For some reason, the images of "weak hold," "slip out," and "dying miser" spoke to me this week. All due apologies to my maple tree.