America was promises.

Ann Katrina heard the whispers in far-off Allendorf. She packed her trunk with her Bible, her prayer book

a winter’s supply of underwear,

(to last until spring laundering time),

the copper tea kettle and coffee pot

she inherited from her mother,

said goodbyes to her brothers at the wharf.

She knew she could never come back.

Anna Katrina was sixteen.

America was promises.

She prayed sturdily when the wind rose

and the small ship shook in paroxyms of fury.

New York was mystery, frightening at first.

Soon there were other people’s children to wash

and dress,

beds to make, halls and steps to scrub.

— from Gridley’s anthology “Journey from Red Hill”

published by CRS OutLoudBooks.