First Generation

FIRST GENERATION

 

We are the children of exiles

raised in the land of our fathers’ dreams

but calling home the land of their hunger.

We sing their songs but with our accents,

we play our music but with their style.

Within our homes they have recreated

the land they left, frozen as it was but never will be again.

And outside our door a strange new world awaits.

 

They pushed us onward,

the old shepherd skills so long imbibed

now used to guide their sons to a better life.

The greenhorns call us narrowbacks,

too weak to struggle and strive as they had to do,

made weak by the sacrifice they made

in order to allow us to be weak.

But they marvel at who we have become

while lamenting that we are slipping from their grasp.

 

And yet the starched white collar chafes

in ways they cannot understand.

The concrete, glass, and steel

form a cage they cannot see.

Choking and confined we seek to break free,

to breathe free the crisp air

to wander the far green hills,

the ones they sold to provide a better life

for we then unborn.

 

Reviews

[Trigorin]

This is very nice. You've hit the right solemn note in this which fits the theme and your imagery is very vivid and lifelike. Keeps the audience interested and the stakes high. Very good work.