Poem About My Father’s Journey to America

DISCOVERY


In 1965 my father left all he knew.
11-years-old, on a journey to reunite
with his father who had left years earlier
to build a new life in America.
Fascinated with the anticipation of flight, he left
the island of Saint Miguel on a small plane, watching
grazing cows diminish in size by the second. Before America,

there was the island of Santa Maria
and the hotel Pencao Batista where my father
became enamored by a tiny switch in the bedroom.
Summoning light on command was magical for a young boy
who had never experienced electricity. A larger plane

took him across unfamiliar waters
until he was welcomed by intimidating buildings
of New York. He didn’t understand the way people spoke,
looked or acted. Like cattle, he and the others
on the plane where pushed, poked, and pointed towards Boston

where his father waited to introduce wonders of a new world.
He watched television for a few minutes before telling his father to
turn it off so the battery wouldn’t die. 45 years vanished

before my father went back
to Portugal to see the house he grew up in
and familiar faces from his neighborhood.
He experienced the same feeling as when
he first arrived in America.