The spring winds are at my back; pushing the car along. As I drive through the rain along the beaten down edges of the muddy Genesee, I can almost see her behind galleon clouds. The faded Emerald Isle; swathed in brogue and resting side by side with family bones, rocky soil and troubles; the troubles.
A simple jig plays, as I search for green velvet hedges and my own leprechaun while sailing home through potato rain, thickened in time with all the promises and realizations of the new land.
I’m thinking of a photo of my Grandfather McMahon at the age of twelve; solemn and smaller than the others. He’s surrounded by greasy machinery in a glass factory. He looks at the camera along with bulky, dirty men twice his age; the impoverished boy with no shoes in a glass factory…the man with the lovely tenor voice…
690 Saint Paul 