Nano, Parts IX - XIV

Nano, Part IX.

Nano struggled, as
the Great Depression
came and went,
mostly alone. For
a time, she placed
her children in a
Catholic orphanage.
Roosevelt's WPA
gave her work
as a seamstress.
She wrote poems,
published in the
local newspaper.

Nano, Part X.

Nano lost a son,
her youngest,
and went gray
overnight.
Still she wrote
poems.
A son and three
daughters married.
But when it came
to men,
her thoughts
were her own.


Nano, Part XI.

This was something new.
As my mother poured
water from the stove
into the tub, my
grandmother stood naked
in the kitchen.
"Why don't you find
a man? You're still
in your fifties,"
my mother said.
Even I, at four
years old, could
see that she
had been,
was still,
beautiful.

Nano, Part XII.

"What's this I found
on your dresser,"
my mother asked
my grandmother.
"These are not your
glasses."
"No," my grandmother
answered, "they are
Mr. Foltz's glasses."
"But, Mother, he's been
gone for twenty years!"
"I know," my
grandmother said,
"but I always thought
he might come back
and need them."

When it came to men,
Nano's thoughts
were her own.


Nano, Part XIV.

No, there is no
Part thirteen,
which to Nano
would have meant
bad luck, along
with black cats,
crows at the
window, and
certain tea leaves.

She left us
at a ripe age,
still loving
and reciting
poetry.

Unfortunately, Nano
never again
saw Ireland.

I hope she sees it now.


Atlántida, Uruguay, May 12 2016

Photo: Susan Traxler Martin

Nano, Parts V - VIII

Nano, Part V.

From the deck of the Mauretania
Nano had her last glimpse
of her beloved Ireland.
The young man visited her
relatives, asking about her,
but she never saw him again.
Her sister kindly wrote to her
for more than fifty years,
often sending the Holly
Bough at Christmas,
but Nano never saw
Ireland again.

Photo: Susan Traxler Martin

Nano, Part VI.

In Nogales, Arizona,
there was little need
of French, and the only pianos
were in saloons.
Nano lost her brother,
and then her mother.
She taught school
in the dusty, desert town,
so unlike Ireland.
The only thing she found
familiar was the Latin
of the Mass.

Nano, Part VII.

In Arizona, Nano married
a miner and storekeeper who
was twenty years her senior.
He drank too much, once threw
a frying pan at her, and even
shot at her, as she ran
from the house.
But she would give him
children, and when
the Easter Rising came in
Ireland, she was pregnant
with her first son.

Nano, Part VIII.

Nano struggled as the
years went by, in
Arizona and then
in California, where
she married another man.
He was a gambler,
an artist,
a musician, and
a serial deserter of
his family.
While the children
continued to come,
Ireland, at least most
of it, became
an independent
country, one that
Nano would
never know.

In the Land my Grandmother Left

In the land my grandmother left,
the June days are very long.
When the sun comes out, it's heaven,
and the mourning doves sing
a different song,
inviting me to know
how it must have been.

I think of her wrenching step
as her foot left the land.


Midleton, East Cork, June 12 2016