This is the work I plan to read at the King's Book Open Mike this evening.  Today is the Friday of the three-day Holocaust conference at PLU. 

 

From a longer poem called "Born in Alaska"

 

The story of Abraham Malm and Alaska,

was Hilda's story

because she was ten in Finland

when her brother Abraham married

and went to America,

to Tacoma, Washington,

where brother Johan lived already.

And it was a story Hilda could tell

Signa about Alaska, where Signa was born.

 

Once, in the dark in a car outside

Signa's house, Signa told the story

of how Hilda remembered

Abraham Malm visited them

from Alaska, he had a badge

he showed them, he was a sheriff.

 

The story of Abraham Malm and Alaska

was Amanda's story as well,

because she was eleven and met

Uncle Abraham and his wife.  It was

1896, in August, when Amanda and Marie

And their mother came there,

Abraham and Anna lived

just downhill across a yard

on the hillside.  Two years

later Abraham went to the Gold Rush

in Alaksa.  He sent her a lovely card.

 

My grandma lived on the East Slope

in Old Town,  where the view

was the lumber mill

with the red glow in its burner,

in the far distance smoke

and the ships that went in to port.