by Gordon Gilbert
 |
Mile Stretch Road, Fortunes Rocks, Maine. Photo by the poet. |
I Dreamed Last Night
of Mile Stretch Road and of a world to come,
perhaps only after I myself am gone,
but perhaps in my remaining years.
I dreamed last night
that I was walking south
along a down-east beachside stretch
of crumbling asphalt.
On either side the road lay only ruins
where once stood so many houses
up and down the beach,
like all those visited behind
and not so far ahead,
what I feared I’d soon see.
But then I saw the colors
blue and red and white
on wooden boards covering a window
in all that still remained of a beach house,
and I walked over for a closer look
and realized why all this came to be:
It was the end of immigration,
as the nation forgot
that it was the immigrants
who made this country great.
It was end of the commons,
as all had been privatized,
further enriching the already rich,
further depriving the already deprived.
In the end, it was the end
of all that we once had,
the end of the American dream.
Gordon Gilbert is a writer living in the west village in NYC, who finds solace in walks along the Hudson River, even while contemplating with trepidation another new year of climate change and political mayhem.
of Mile Stretch Road and of a world to come,
perhaps only after I myself am gone,
but perhaps in my remaining years.
I dreamed last night
that I was walking south
along a down-east beachside stretch
of crumbling asphalt.
On either side the road lay only ruins
where once stood so many houses
up and down the beach,
like all those visited behind
and not so far ahead,
what I feared I’d soon see.
But then I saw the colors
blue and red and white
on wooden boards covering a window
in all that still remained of a beach house,
and I walked over for a closer look
and realized why all this came to be:
It was the end of immigration,
as the nation forgot
that it was the immigrants
who made this country great.
It was end of the commons,
as all had been privatized,
further enriching the already rich,
further depriving the already deprived.
In the end, it was the end
of all that we once had,
the end of the American dream.
Gordon Gilbert is a writer living in the west village in NYC, who finds solace in walks along the Hudson River, even while contemplating with trepidation another new year of climate change and political mayhem.
