The Crossing

Southampton rain on a boarding-house pane Cousins in the kitchen saying "you'll be fine" Uncle with a bottle and a ticket in his hand Sixteen pounds for a brand-new land Mama sewed the roubles in the lining of my coat I lay awake all night with a stone in my throat And the gulls were crying in the dark Like they knew… Oh, the ocean Cruel and beautiful Rolling us away from everything we know Oh, the ocean Silver and terrible Somewhere past the edge of the world There's a mountain… waiting… for me Steerage bunks stacked three to the wall Two hundred strangers and one tin bowl Yiddish and Russian and a baby's cry Prayers in the corner as the land slips by The Bay of Biscay threw us side to side Every soul was sick, every mother cried But at night the sea was full of stars And they glowed… Then the sky went black past the Line The waves came over like the hand of God A child in fever in the bunk below We said Kaddish… and let him go… Into the deep… into the deep… Day seventeen and a cloud like a cloth Laid on a table of stone in the dawn Men in uniforms with pens and ink "Write your name. In a European tongue." I wrote it in Yiddish with a shaking hand And they stamped my paper, I was in the land Oh, the ocean Cruel and beautiful You carried us away from everything we know Oh, the ocean Silver and terrible At the bottom of the world I found the mountain… waiting… for me First night in Africa… a District Six room… Cousins at the quayside… a candle and a tune… Waiting… for me…