Our art museum trip yielded some rich rewards; it was the "Ellis Island: Ghosts of Freedom" exhibit that captured the imagination of Caitlin, who wrote the poem below. The two images in this post offer just a sample of the brilliant photography of the abandoned hospital complex on Ellis Island. And this is just one of many remarkable poems produced by students on the trip:
The rust encrusts my heart,
Like it does the abandoned sink.
Patches of brown scatter across the wall,
Peeling, unwanted.
Beneath its cracked surface appears new color,
A new slate,
Like the rest of us wanted.
I want the wall to be my skin,
My soul.
Bring in the new, let out the old.
Each drip and drop is lost,
Like my common sense.
What is right and what is wrong?
Porcelain sinks rest against the crinkled walls.
My mind is like the dull green knobs,
Always turning, but only when needed.
Rust and dirt sprawl across their tops,
The white, fading gray sinks
Are devoured by age.
A hole is drilled in the wall,
1 2 3 4
How many more lives will be lost?
Be replaced?
Abothe the holes rests a mirror,
Reflecting the Statue of Liberty.
I can't bear to look,
For if I do, I'll see my disgraceful face,
And the ones of those
Who once lived here with me,
Gone.
Light shines through the mere window still.
A sign of hope, of happiness,
Just barely touching the wall,
A small fraction of light enlightens the walls.
Eager to get out, to be set free.
That light once was me.
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