Ellis Island by Joseph Bruchac

Ellis Island

by Joseph Bruchac

(published in his 1978 book, Entering Onondaga, Cold Mountain Press)

Beyond the red brick of Ellis Island

where the two Slovak children

who became my grandparents

waited the long days of quarantine,

after leaving the sickness,

the old Empires of Europe,

a Circle Line ship slips easily

on its way to the island

of the tall woman, green

as dreams of forests and meadows

waiting for those who’d worked

a thousand years

yet never owned their own.

Like millions of oth...