Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SOCIAL WORKER, by HELEN BRYAN


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SOCIAL WORKER, by                    
First Line: I've seen them sit / like little squirming chipmunks
Last Line: To sin and die, but still to follow beauty?


I've seen them sit
Like little squirming chipmunks,
Their feet tap-tapping
The hard chair rails,
Their young brows knotted
Over their sewing, art-work,
Or what the stuff might be.

Last night a woman talked
Hard at them for two hours.
She wore a straight black hat and bangs.
Her cotton stockings shagged
Above her spread flat feet.
She told them all about the mountain whites;
She is a good, good woman.

I watched them as they sniffed the smell
Thick with gardenia and plumeria's meld
That drifts beyond the window --
Their eyes were wistful like young puzzled stars
Caught in a cloudbank.

Perhaps they know just where the moonlight purls
All gold upon the dreaming cream-lipped sea;
Perhaps they hear
Out of the husky silence of the night
The strong, bright monster that is life
Calling its raucous, lovely song across the dark.

What price this musty chaff we offer them
When those inviting doors stand open wide
Through which their feet must slip
To follow beauty's far uncertain trail --
To sin and die, but still to follow beauty?





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