Giving it All



Shoulders sagging she averts her face
As she imparts on her son one last embrace
The fate of the family is in his hands
As he boards the ship for a foreign land

She mournfully watches his ship disappear
And steels herself to heartache and fear
Three sons she lost to the hideous war
She now mourns the loss of even one more

The young German man sails weeks to the dock
Where Lady Liberty welcomes him to the flock
A stoic man meets him and they journey by train
Across the vast land and the wide open plain

Laboring on a farm in the hot Kansas sun
He toils by day stacking bales one by one
Ornery farm boys toss the bales out the doors
But he rises above and continues his chores

Day after day the mother scans the sea
Hoping that God hears her soulful plea
But as fate would have it the winter months came
The man sleeps in the barn and warms his hands in the grain

The years turned to decades, money remains tight
As the Great Depression adds to his plight.
His meager earnings he sends overseas
This land of plenty so sparse, how can this be?

She drinks the cup of suffering each day of her life
Knowing he struggles alone causes her strife
Her will remains strong but her body grows weary
All hopes of reuniting with him were dashed clearly

One day a black edged letter from Germany arrived
He intuitively knew that his mother had died
He sat down at the table, his bride by his side
The immigrant farmer broke down and cried

Comments

  1. VickiJune 15, 2012 at 5:43 AM

    I love it! What a great tribute to your ancestors.

    ReplyDelete
  2. silver liningJune 19, 2012 at 3:55 PM

    oh, Ann... it is beautiful.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousFebruary 24, 2013 at 6:29 AM

    Dear Ann Feldmann,

    Wow, this piece of literature has SO much emotion poured into it! I could mentally

    picture with ease, the tragic tale of a mom waiting for her son to return home from Germany and

    passing away during the wait. With only a few lines, you managed to portray a very touching

    and relatable story.

    The whole time this mother was waiting for her sons’ return, the reader is fed a wealth of

    details. This mother is from the Great Depression, and so without her son there to help her get

    through these hard times, she falls apart. In a very tragic manner, her son receives a letter

    informing him of his mom’s death, the very same one that she was reluctantly expecting.

    I’m sure that your students in Bellevue love and appreciate all that you teach to them.

    They are very lucky to have a teacher capable of such emotionally deep writing. I was amazed at

    how fleshed out these characters in your poem became after only a page and a half, and I look

    forward to hopefully seeing more of your pieces get published. As our English Professor David

    Martin says, “Write on!”

    Sincerely, Justin

    ReplyDelete
  4. UnknownMay 22, 2013 at 12:57 PM

    Love it! Very strong images help to create the emotion.

    ReplyDelete

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