excerpt from “Prayer for My Immigrant Relatives”

While they wait in long lines, legs shifting,

fingers growing tired of holding handrails,

pages of paperwork, give them patience.

Help them to recall the cobalt Mediterranean

or the green valleys full of vineyards and sheep.

When peoples’ words resemble the buzz

of beehives, help them to hear the music

of home, sung from balconies overflowing

with woven rugs and bundled vegetables...

give them the memory of their first step

onto solid land, after much ocean, air and clouds,

remind them of the phone call back home saying,

We arrived. Yes, thank God we made it, we are here.