Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SUCH WERE THE MORNINGS, by F. R. MCCLEARY


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SUCH WERE THE MORNINGS, by                    
First Line: When my first father in america
Last Line: The urge of his step and his planting.
Subject(s): Immigrants; Emigrant; Emigration; Immigration


When my first father in America
Stepped to the shore,
Out of the Chesapeake,
Out of his boat --
He looked at the forest
And the shine of a birch set him dreaming of God;
He looked at the sky
And the clouds were tomorrow's children;
Then he faced to the West
And dreamed of Ohio, dreamed the Mississippi River,
He looked over Nevada and saw the Pacific.
When my first father stepped the first time on America,
Ah, the rock of the boat and the smell of the water,
The yield of the earth and the grass coming up,
He began a new rhythm,
A blood rhythm beating of beauty,
Singing a nation.
Now listen to it throbbing and throbbing
American music, my forefather's stride in me,
My heart and its measure,
Long clean sling of the axes and hammers,
Left and right -- and left.

Here in his fields
I go up a path that his bold feet struck for and found
To a sky-meadow over the bay.
Here he watched the fog-barges push up the water,
Cold gray noses pushing November up the gray Chesapeake
Into the creeks and the rivers.
Here he once stood with the sun, the noon, and April.
He watched the grass blades gathering for summer,
The anachronism of hemlocks in Spring,
And he dreamt of these apple trees,
Black knotted shapes of the winter,
Twist of these apple boughs bending like smoke
Across the blowing sky.

Come walk with me over his fields;
It was his eye laid the first line of the fences,
Set the first stones and followed with the rails;
Here against the night, against the forest, and the bay,
He lit his stubborn candle;
Against tomorrow
He laid his axe and plow.
(Yes he smelled the honeysuckles running the fences in June,
Saw rabbit tails leap to the brush.)
See where he buried the first of his children,
Where he carried the first thin stone of death
And ate the first crust of his bitterness.
See where he trundled the great stones of God for his worship --
Should you stop with me here in a plum blossom twilight
While the bells from his chapel ring down,
Down the willow roads and rivers,
Blossoms of dusk, blossoms of moon,
Petals of Maryland evening,
I know we should see him come up the path
Looking about him at April.

Once in the bend of an early May morning
I saw a young stallion, his black nose over a fence,
Watching as I came up the road;
His ears pricked high,
The curve, and the sheen, and the satin,
Taut and eager,
He held all the morning, all Spring.
I stood still and watched him as he watched me,
Neither of us moved the least muscle;
The shadows about us,
The long cool slant of early May morning and dew,
Here was no dust,
Here was first morning in America,
And we its possessors.

Such were the mornings of my fathers,
Their days and their nights;
And as they have labored, so I have reaped,
So I must plant and go on.
My heart's discontent turns easy
With the first green wheat-ripple tossed up a hillside,
And I shall know peace of the earth,
Peace with my fathers,
Holding my child the first time.

Down these furrows,
Plumbed and trodden by his feet,
Here with the sun and the soil,
A pocket of rain up the West,
I put out my hand and I touch my forefather's body;
I know the full depth of his breathing,
The stroke and the breadth of his heart,
The urge of his indomitable muscles,
Pushing, pushing,
Into America.

Now quiet men carve the winter away,
Furrow by furrow,
Crows stumble about on branches of Spring,
Unaccustomed to April --
While I in the fields where my fathers once walked,
Watching the skies they once watched,
I know old rains running over me,
I know old suns beating down;
And warm in my hands
I know the full burden,
Their great immortality,
Their love of America.

Look over back of New York City
You will see my grandfather busy with his plow,
Look back of Chicago
You will see him busy with his seeds;
San Francisco knows him,
All America knows him,
The urge of his step and his planting.





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