Stepping Off the Ferry

The yarn of my great, great grandmother’s shawl

furled across an ocean of culture churning prop-wash

behind the motor vessel’s passage.

She is holding her baby.

Her husband’s hands in his pockets,

he stands in front of her, shielding child and woman

from sea spray cold

of bow mounted wind.

Scholars in the peasantry

of Ellis Island school of hope,

their mortarboards, a black bandana and a wool cap.

When I stepped off the ferry

in Juneau I thought of them.

I thought of the heart’s immigration into new life.

I thought of the back-strap of change cut from lean bone.

I thought of the last frontier—Alaska.

The eye is never so correct as when it looks

upon a new landscape—nor the heart so still

as when the ear turns

to hear an unfamiliar dialect.

Hands in my pockets

searching for prosperity,

I realized my ancestor’s hands

juggling change

and tossed a coin in the air

to call it.

© 2005 Dan Kantak