She goes about her nothing way <br />Pointing plastic smiles at cardboard figures, <br />Doing relatives and others on given dates at given times, <br />As surely marked on some drab calendar. <br /> <br />With effort she could spell compassion, <br />but the homeless constitute a threat. <br />She never wonders how or why. <br /> <br />She fills her day with nothing things. <br />She doesn’t know another way; <br />She hasn’t walked damp forest paths; <br />She doesn’t feel the sun’s kind touch; <br />She hasn’t watched an eagle fly <br />And craned her neck till it wants to break long after bird becomes the sky. <br /> <br />Her outer crust has shunned the crisp <br />sweet green of freshly mown grass. <br />She’s heard of music, but hasn’t let it crumble her shell. <br />Nor has she ever reached into a painting. <br />Her thoughts have stretched once or twice <br />… to leaking taps and travellers’ cheques. <br /> <br />Three times she kept standing at her door and talked <br />To her lonely calipered neighbour, <br />But didn’t ask her in - you never know with them, she says. <br /> <br />She once or twice poured tea for charity, <br />but now she counts her money gleefully <br />and flits from England’s cold <br />to our sunny shores which are too hot <br />then back to England - it passes time. <br /> <br />Children and pets are not for her. They need …..someone. <br />She has no future, nor past nor present. <br />She goes about her nothing way. <br />She doesn’t know that she doesn’t know <br />nor that <br />she just <br />simply <br />isn’t. <br /> <br />(July 1998)<br /><br />Diana van den Berg<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/meringue/
