Welcome to the pond

Well folks, seems blogger is not letting me into my Poetry Pond to post my latest poem!! It takes forever for the page to load, and instead of loading I get a page that says there's a server error. I hope that's just temporary, because I'd hate to lose access to my poetry site! So I've decided to post my latest work on this blog and I'll put it on the other blog when that one is up again.

*Edit: IMMEDIATELY after I posted this, I was able to get back into my poetry blog. Life is funny, huh?*

First, however, an explanation of what led me to write the poem in the first place:

I wrote this poem because lately I've been listening to a lot of bluegrass music, especially bluegrass collaborations with Irish and Celtic musicians. Bluegrass and other mountain music of America came into being, it's been said, out of the music that the Scotch-Irish immigrants brought with them from Europe. Somehow, the fiddle tunes and songs morphed into what we now know as traditional American folk and country music.

With this in mind, I started thinking of what music might have meant to one of those Irish immigrants in his first few months deep in the mountains of a strange and foreign new land, a new home. Music played on the instruments the immigrants both carried with them and discovered in their new home must have kept them sane, kept them from missing their home too much. Music must have provided them that one last link between their old country and their new one. Obviously, music continues to be important to the descendants of these Irish and Scottish settlers, even if it sounds a lot different. So, in honor of these hardy immigrants and the music they shared with America, I've written the following poem.

Homesick Immigrant Blues

I miss my home and I miss my sea
I miss the green rolling hills
I miss all the things I left behind
For chasing foreign thrills

I wanted to stay but hunger was fierce
I cried when we left the shore
But now I seek my fortunes here
I thirst to find my more

America is a big, strange land
So wild, so free, so bright
I found myself a little farm
Yet I miss my home at night

When I think about old Ireland
And what I left behind
I pick up my trusty violin
And it brings me peace of mind

I play my jigs and reels and airs
I play what I learned as a lad
I play for those still poor and starved
I play for my mum and dad