Isle of Hope, Isle of Tears

I heard this song the other evening sung with much feeling so hence I share the words of this Irish song. It was sung by Tommy Fleming.

On the first day on January,
Eighteen ninety-two,
They opened Ellis Island and they let
The people through.
And the first to cross the threshold
Of that isle of hope and tears,
Was Annie Moore from Ireland
Who was all of fifteen years.

Chorus:

Isle of hope, isle of tears,
Isle of freedom, isle of fears,
But it's not the isle you left behind.
That isle of hunger, isle of pain,
Isle you'll never see again
But the isle of home is always on your mind.

In a little bag she carried
All her past and history,
And her dreams for the future
In the land of liberty.
And courage is the passport
When your old world disappears
But there's no future in the past
When you're fifteen years

Chorus

When they closed down Ellis Island
In nineteen fourty-three,
Seventeen million people
Had come there for sanctuary.
And in Springtime when I came here
And I stepped onto it's piers,
I thought of how it must have been
When you're fifteen years.

Chorus

The Wind

I was travelling near Broken Hill, NSW Australia a couple of years ago and I came across a piece of paper with these words written on it.

the wind is scary,

the wind is sad,

the wind is pleasant,

the wind is bad.

that wind that blows across the plain

tells us to be careful and look for rain,

the wind that howls at night,

tells us that death is in sight,

the wind that blows from the North

tells us that hot days are coming forth.

the wind can tell us stories happy and sad,

it can direct and divert us to good and bad,

it can be our greatest friend I've learned to trust,

but when it is upset, it covers us with dust.

so give us the wind that is soft and gentle -

the wind that rocks the cradle soft as a mantle -

the wind that caresses the flowers in their bright array,

is the wind I love to greet me at the break of day.

Through My Eyes

Shopping at the supermarket with my 85 year old father is rather fun, for he is discovering new things 'through my eyes'.

so off we go shopping and trolley he does push
up each aisle, but along the way
he stops and says,
"daughter, what is that shape, what does it say"?
i say, "feel it father, feel what shape it is",
he puts both hands out to touch it, with a smile upon his face

"it feels like plastic, daughter but tell me, what's inside it"?,
say I father, "it's peaches in slices",
he said, "oh you don't say, peaches always came in tins",
i said, "not always these days, father"
he pushes the trolley and see the shapes of people
man or women, he said he can't tell

i asked him would he like some potato chips
the reply was, "your mother wouldn't buy those"
well i said, "let's give them a try,
you can sit and listen to the cricket
whilst you eat your chips",
another big smile came upon his face

"what are those things on the shelf, daughter"?
i explain each item, what it's used for
what the ingredients are, he listens with interest
and he asks more, seems I never stop talking,
now when we go shopping he has memorized
where most things are :)

Misty

things that are misty are certainly never clear
the mind is clouded with ’something’ she fears
that ’something’ will suffice one day
and then all her pain will go away.

in the meantime she sits and thinks
takes herself a little drink, it takes away what she thinks,
she then unscrews the bottle of the pills
takes a handful to her mouth, and swallows.

next day she wakes in a strange place
though things are clouded in her mind
she vaguely remembers what she did
that ’something’ has not surfaced in her mind
written by JMD

*I can recall not long ago that I read about a women who tried to take her own life, so hence I wrote the words above.