Migrants

Migrants
(for Celebrate Festival, Whalley Range, 8/6/24)

When I was young, the other kids
Would call me names I thought unfair
Names that say, “You don’t come from here”
Names like Paddy, Gippo and Yid.

Now, Fanny Jones came from the Emerald Isle
Wore the shamrock every Patrick’s Day
Escaped the famine and ran away
With a man called Jim who’d made her smile

Martha Burbridge was a holy terror
Who ruled her kids and her fairground rides
With a hand of iron and a temper beside
For any chavvy flatty who spoke in error

Andrew Coonan changed his name
To sound less Jewish, so it’s said
And nobody heard, when he was breaking bread
The silent brocha that always came

But me, I’ve never been anywhere
I was born only a few miles away
It's my migrant ancestors that let me say
That what makes me me comes from everywhere

I am made of shamrocks, saints and menorahs
I am made of colcannon, of jigs and of reels
I am made of klezmer and the caravan wheel
Of shtetl and ghetto, of fairground shows

We all have our Marthas, and our Andrews
We all have - somewhere – our young Fanny Jones
Parents, grandparents, generations long flown
Who appear in our faces, our habits, our foods

We are the children of those who moved
And the children of those who stayed
All of us migrants, or a migrant’s babe
All of us with stories still to be told

 

June 2024

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