THE BRIDGE TO AMERICA On board the rotting coffin ships they fingered icons, beads, invoked the Sacred Heart of Christ, my Sligo forbears, proud in rags, with mouths of crooked teeth, the meek who dared inherit earth. Unswayed by intimations scrawled across prophetic winds they hailed the solitude of stars. At last a landfall came in view, a dark expanse of coast, this brooding New Hibernia. I picture them on rundown wharfs, the greenhorns striking out for Canaans all across the land. Pretenders to the whirlwind night, the vast unchosen staked their claims, the meek who dared inherit earth. -- T. S. Kerrigan