We are all pioneers, or maybe not

In the opening scene of Angels in a America, the funeral of Louis' grandmother, the rabbi speaks about the immigrant journey and asserts that the descendents can not make the same journey.  " You can never make that crossing that she made, for such Great Voyages in this world do not any more exist." 

One commentator remarks that all the major characters in the play are pioneers of some sort, perhaps contradicting the rabbi.  Certainly the Mormon characters bring to mind their own ancestors who made the 19th century journey from New York state to Utah across the western plains.  Even if Frederick Jackson Turner's frontier hypothesis is out of fashion and the frontier was not the most important experience in shaping American character, the mythology of journey--both immigrant and pioneer in the west--remains powerful.  

This poem allows us to think about the value of a slow journey at ground level from the perspective of those who more often travel rapidly in the air.   (Remember Harper's final speech delivered through the window of an airplane.)  Nye encourages us to consider what we miss as we travel fast and high, but she does not avoid noticing that the old journey also had its cost.

 

Full Day

by Naomi Shihab Nye

The pilot on the plane says:
In one minute and fifty seconds
we're going as far
as the covered wagon went
in a full day.
We look down
on clouds,
mountains of froth and foam.
We eat a neat
and subdivided lunch.
How was it for the people in
the covered wagon?
They bumped and jostled.
Their wheels broke.
Their biscuits were tough.
They got hot and cold and old.
Their shirts tore on the branches
they passed.
But they saw the pebbles
and the long grass
and the sweet shine of evening
settling on the fields.
They knew the ruts and the rocks.
They threw their furniture out
to make the wagons lighter.
They carried their treasures
in a crooked box.

"Full Day" by Naomi Shihab Nye, from Come With Me. © Greenwillow, 2000.