Cross Country Train Trip (Image challenge), a random Pandora challenge no end date Options

[Guest_Jox_*]

Hi Cathy,

I think Nina has said what I would wish to, so I'll simply leave a personal "Very well done" here for your poem - muchly enjoyed thank you... very well-written.

J.

[Guest_Cathy_*]

Hi Fran,

Wow, what fantastic responses. Well done to the three of you (three cheers? lol).

Thank you Fran!

[Guest_Cathy_*]

Hi Nina,

Great response to the challenge.  So many people took the biggest risk of their lives, leaving behind everything they have known, fleeing poverty and oppression for the dream of a better life in America, many not even speaking a word of English.  I can only imagine how they felt on seeing the statue of liberty for the first time, arriving on Ellis Island and then disgorging into the streets of New York.  There must have been a mixture of fear, bewilderment and excitement.

I couldn't imagine what they must have felt ... I'm sure I didn't even come
close to describing the emotions they felt at first sight of the statue.

I very much enjoyed the read.

Thank you!

Cathy

[Guest_Cathy_*]

Hi James,

think Nina has said what I would wish to, so I'll simply leave a personal "Very well done" here for your poem - muchly enjoyed thank you... very well-written.

Thank you!

I've never seen the statue but I imagine that I would be very excited
and emotional at my first glimpse.  It has become a symbol of so much
to so many I can only imagine what it must have meant to someone
coming to the states from another country looking for a better life.

[Guest_Jox_*]

Hi Cathy,

Although I have no emotional feelings for thee Statue of Liberty (save my Father looked out from the top in 1966) I can appreciate it is an important icon the United States as both a nation and a cosmopolitan home for global refugees - economic and political. It is, also, a globally-important symbol of the United States - despite being made in France and sitting atop a base made in the USA (something which I have always found ironic).

Many things are symbolic but the Statue Of Liberty is not just a representative monument, it also (literally) embodies fraternity, justice and equality - which, no doubt, explains the French Connection (so to speak!)

Vive la revolution!

Regards, J.

[Ephiny]

The responses to this beautiful picture are amazing!

Cathy, I loved your piece here, especially this last part

Out there in the harbor
stands a woman, faded grey;
torch in hand, raised up high
to promise freedom to all men.

I could just imagine the generations of tired, frightened people, gazing up at it for the first time..excellent :)

Here is one that this picture made me think of..from a few lines I scribbled on a train about two years ago.  It's a bit strange but long train journeys seem to have that effect, I think!!

Thoughts on a train

A pressurised, furious cold
in late January.
Spring circles and streaks past
in strange occasional orange light over
bulbs clinging grimly to hard ground.
Frost pulls a firm grasp.
Grey skies.
Grey faces.

Mothers fling frantic stimulation
at bored children, voices shrill
against fogged glass,
far off lights, wisps of smoke,
and stale scents of coffee.

A nun reads from The Tablet Catholic Weekly-
Life and Death Choices over Iraq.
She hasn't turned the page for over an hour
and I have read the
upside down
paragraph over and over and over and
can't make up my mind either.
At times her eyes glaze over into
a sleepy, mild obscurity.
I cannot read her.
It is one of those days.
Nothing is real and she dozes gently into my thoughts.
Our eyes meet.
I look away first.

She gives up and turns the page at Athlone station,
Approaches to Unity.
This interests her more and she adjusts her glasses.
I remain with Iraq; she has disappointed me.
It floats around my mind with
music on my cd player, an aching tune,

Miserere Nobis, dona nobis pacem

Plea for peace.

It makes the afternoon golden suddenly,
crystallises tears and ends
on a mixture of sixty six versions of the chord C.
Its echo lasts.

Nothing makes sense.

The future drifts ahead but I want to stay
here in the dry air,
hidden, too and hooded,
a fixed gaze outwards.
I want this same blinkered belief.
Colour hurts.
Skin itches and jumps, somewhere
a heart thuds and pulls out air.
Too fast.

Feet tap, she stirs now. Wary glance.
I want to sit here and refuse to move.
until someone comes to pull me
out of my head,
piece by piece.
I get up and walk, like her I have a purpose
I am trying to find.
The mist thickens.
Steam drifts with no breeze to guide it.

She straightens, stretches tired legs into my vacated space.
I wonder what conclusions she drew.
She certainly mixed up mine.

[Cleo_Serapis]

Seeking Better Life

Worn shoes hurry along,
nearly lift me off my feet;
barely off the boat,
ushered onto rusty train.

Mom grips my hand tight,
it hurts, I know she's scared;
eyes dart from window to window
memorizing everything she sees.

The ride is slow and clumsy
jerking us back and forth,
to and fro,
wheels grind forward on the tracks.

What lies ahead?
Mom says better life;
sold everything when daddy died
just to make this trip.

She strains toward the window,
wan cheeks now blushed,
tears create rivulets;
too choked up to speak.

Out there in the harbor
stands a woman, faded grey;
torch in hand, raised up high
to promise freedom to all men.

Cathy Bollhoefer~
copyright Aug2005

What a great response Cathy to the photograph!  :guitar:

Well done!
Clincher ending too!  :pharoah2

~Cleo

[Cleo_Serapis]

Lucie, your poem is really very poignant.

I am in awe by this thought here:

Plea for peace.

It makes the afternoon golden suddenly,
crystallises tears and ends
on a mixture of sixty six versions of the chord C.
Its echo lasts.

This is a keeper for sure!

Thanks for sharing and posting your train(ed) thoughts!
~Cleo :pharoah2

[Guest_Nina_*]

Hi Lucie

A very powerful response to the photograph.

My favourite part has to be:

I want to sit here and refuse to move.
until someone comes to pull me
out of my head,
piece by piece.

Thanks for the read

Nina

[Guest_ohsteve_*]

Take the morning train from Shippea Hill,
and change a Cambridge town to London.
Every nine days for six months I was riding through,
a placid English countryside.

A visitor looking at the backs of houses all scrunched
together wondering what the insides looked like.
Were the people the same way? All scrunched up?
After London bored me and tube rides paled,
On the last train home in the winter I wrote…

Fields of emptiness flash by an open window,
the snow hides them all from view.
Dawn slowly creeps it red fingers into the night,
With gray and dingy skies following.
Bleak bare branches scrape the snow down.

I soon found an auto second-hand,
an Austin A-40, what a find.
It took me on rides to local pubs,
where the drink was well done.
The patrons soon were too.

I left to return to America
with a love of England
and the love of an English wife.

[Guest_Nina_*]

Hi Steve

Well done with this response to the photo. Glad you found love to take back with you from UK.

Nina

[Guest_Jox_*]

Hi Steve -

A well-written response to the challenge - good luck!

An interesting train journey - and I do remember Austin A40s - indeed, a few are still on the roads, owned by enthuiasts - probably cost a small fortune now.

I didn't realise you had married over here whilst you were with the USAF. I would say congratulations - but I imagine I'd be a little late!

There are still many USAF bases here and thousands of personnel. Quite a long tradition now. In fact Britain is sometimes dubbed "The Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier."

Thanks for the train journey.

J.

[Cleo_Serapis]

Well done Steve - I enjoyed your trip muchly!


I mergeed your thread into this one too in case you are wondering where it went....

Cheers
Lori
:D

[Guest_ohsteve_*]

Ah but Jox I was a civilian when I got married... I met her while in the service but i couldnt get married to a foriegn National without my commmanders permission and he said no so i got out  got my pass port went back got married then one year later went back in ... but according to the commander it was only puppy love  32 years three kids and a grandson but its only puppy love... shameful of me  eh?  LOL.

[Guest_Nina_*]

Hi Steve

What a lovely story

Nina