Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A CRACK IN THE SIDEWALK, by ELIZABETH M. TEFFAULT


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A CRACK IN THE SIDEWALK, by                    
First Line: Yesterday / as I walked along my way
Last Line: So I took it home with me.
Subject(s): Roads; Paths; Trails


Yesterday
As I walked along my way
Smooth and white
The pavement lay
In the bright sunlight
Stretching out before me as I went
Like a great hard floor
With not a thing
To mar the perfect work
As near and far I gazed upon
Its vast expanse of whitened stone.

Blocks and blocks I travelled o'er
In the sunlight on that floor
When before me very black
I saw a line ... It was a crack
Right across the whitened way
Where beneath the stone
The earth had fallen away,
Where the wind and rain together
Wrought the results of inclement weather
Ragged, narrow,
Seeming black on the white a long deep crack.

From end to end I looked it over --
It was not wide but there before me
Peeping through
Looking upward to the blue
Scarcely able to be seen,
One tiny growing shoot of green
Struggled on up through the stone
Pressing round and quite alone.
It was beautiful to see --
One of life's mysteries
Centered there midst all that cold hard substance
Hiding from the sight of passing men
Who, could they only see --
Strangely there is beauty
Even in a place so black
As a lonely sidewalk crack.

But alas, I sadly knew
It would only grow
Till trod upon
By those who come and go
Carelessly along the way
With no thought of what may be
Beneath their hastening feet.
But to me
This would-be little flower
Was an emblem in its stony bower
Of the Truth crushed round about
By the rocks of mortal doubt
And from it I could not flee
So I took it home with me.





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