When Bradford and company landed
it was like today: not frigid, but not warm.
The century of souls banded
together against the native swarm.

The gray beauty persists to remind me
they found liberty in Leiden,
having been chased from Scrooby,
but soon were on the run again.

Slowed by the Speedwell’s leak
they sailed their isolated odyssey,
tossed by westerlies and tempest’s peak,
missed Manhattan’s Hudson mouth at sea.

Halted by the Pollack Rip, and trapped
between Nantucket and the Cape,
their feet touched sand with a Compact
in a place for food they had to scrape.

From P-town they saw the Mayflower leave
a shallop behind to explore the coast;
slid Indian corn from a grave up their sleeve,
and almost died, themselves to roast.

To Plymouth Bay they retreated
in the graveyard of abandoned Patuxet,
with cannon on Fort Hill undefeated,
building on Cole’s Hill without debt.

The grim land took half a century of souls away
before that first thanksgiving day.

Ordained Servant Online, October 2020.