{"id":2175,"date":"2014-04-22T19:53:48","date_gmt":"2014-04-22T19:53:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=2175"},"modified":"2014-06-30T03:45:52","modified_gmt":"2014-06-30T03:45:52","slug":"2175","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=2175","title":{"rendered":"Murphy\u2019s Berry Farm &#8211;  Pia Taavila-Borsheim"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 for Julia Garland Murphy, my great-grandmother<\/em><\/p>\n<p>When my forbears homesteaded northwest Detroit<br \/>\nto grow bushels of berries on brambles in fields,<br \/>\ngrand wagon wheels rutted dirt avenues down<br \/>\nto the farmers\u2019 booth market and riverside docks.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThey had sailed in from Ireland, from Tralee and Cork<br \/>\nfrom Dublin, Clondalkin, the rough countryside,<br \/>\nto dig in long rows of Michigan peat<br \/>\nto bear hail storms and blight, typhoid and drought<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\ntill the lathery blossoms ruffled their dreams.<br \/>\nIn black and white snapshots crackled in frames,<br \/>\na fierce old lady in feathers and furs<br \/>\nlifts her chin to stare down all doubters.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nIn another view, in a cotton white apron,<br \/>\nshe pulls on the reins of two fine drafthorses,<br \/>\nleads them out from the backyard barns<br \/>\nwhile lilacs crowd the house and clothesline.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nOne last picture holds the next generations<br \/>\nminus my mother, away then at school.<br \/>\nHer mother and her mother\u2019s mother stand<br \/>\nwith their menfolk, their children, their aunts\u2014<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMy birthdate and I lie thirty years thence.<br \/>\nNot yet was I meant to walk acres of stumps,<br \/>\nnot yet meant to find the farrier\u2019s tools<br \/>\nnor to wander the furrows of straw dust and root.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nPia Taavila-Borsheim&#8217;s recent work has appeared in Threepenny Review, Wordgathering, 32 Poems, Measure, storySouth, Birmingham Poetry Review, The Bear River Review and The Southern Review, among others. Her collected poems, Moon on the Meadow, was published by Gallaudet University Press in 2008; a chapbook, Two Winters, was released by Finishing Line Press in 2011. Other poems have just appeared in such anthologies as The Bloomsbury Anthology of Contemporary Jewish-American Poetry, and Deaf Lit Extravaganza, while forthcoming journals include Fjords Review, Blue Lyra Review and Boneback Mountain Review.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 for Julia Garland Murphy, my great-grandmother When my forbears homesteaded northwest Detroit to grow bushels of berries on brambles in fields, grand wagon wheels rutted dirt avenues down to the farmers\u2019 booth market and riverside docks. &nbsp; They had sailed in from Ireland, from Tralee and Cork from Dublin, Clondalkin, the rough [&#038;hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2222,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[91],"class_list":["post-2175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","tag-julia-garland-ned-the-horse-left-detroit-1800s"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2175"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2223,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2175\/revisions\/2223"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}