Off The Record

These were the hills for which my father sighed,

These stark protuberances bare of grace.

These were the fields for which my mother cried,

Surrounded by a better time and place.

This foreign soil in which my forebears lie,

This alien land where ancestors of mine

Were born, and loved, and dreamed, and lived to die

Holds naught of home, no semblance of a shrine.

Yet, having fled the tyranny and pain,

And having fought for latitude, and won,

My mother wept for fields preserved in rain;

My father longed for hills embalmed in sun.