Long Island Sound
a poem by Emma Lazarus
Yes, that Emma Lazarus, the one who wrote the verses on the Statue of Liberty. Today, however, I have a small, quiet poem about a place she loved and made her own.
I see it as it looked one afternoon In August,— by a fresh soft breeze o’erblown. The swiftness of the tide, the light thereon, A far-off sail, white as a crescent moon.
She paints the landscape for us, with all of our senses. We can feel the fresh soft breeze, hear the waves rolling in, smell the salt of the ocean, see the far-off sail. Now is a good time to take a moment for yourself, one small moment of quiet and peace. So take it: close your eyes for a moment, take a couple of deep breaths, feel your connection to the earth. Ready? Then let’s read Long Island Sound by Emma Lazarus.
The shining waters with pale currents strewn, The quiet fishing-smacks, the Eastern cove, The semi-circle of its dark, green grove. The luminous grasses, and the merry sun In the grave sky; the sparkle far and wide,
One of the things I love about this poem is that Lazarus captures here a small moment of her life. It is not one of those big, grand moments that change our lives. No, it is one of the innumerable small, quiet moments that shape our lives. The big, grand moments are make us what we are. But it is what we do in the infinity of small, quiet moments that make us who we are.
So in this one quiet moment, Lazarus paused to create this picture for us, this one perfect moment of beauty and peace.
Laughter of unseen children, cheerful chirp Of crickets, and low lisp of rippling tide, Light summer clouds fantastical as sleep Changing unnoted while I gazed thereon.
It’s a quotidian moment, a picture that could have come from any day or time, but it came on this one August day on the shore of the Long Island Sound. Lazarus turned this one instant, this infinitesimal point of time, and she made it eternal.
All these fair sounds and sights I made my own.
And then she made them ours.