Child in Hospital

The yellow sunlight mocks her tangled hair,

Threading with callous gold disordered curls,

And with derisive finger strokes her cheek.

Late blossoms in the garden, once so fair,

Now nod a senseless pattern of mad whirls

That can of Natures dourness only speak.

But a few days ago blithe was the air;

Dewdrops were jewels – now come tears for pearls,

And heartache clothes the world with mantle bleak.

Parents, in helpless anguish, cannot share

This loneliness, this utter banishment.

The child, quick with new insight, sees the void,

The gulf they cannot bridge, and knows destroyed

Yet one more fiction.  Life does not relent !

 

Weekly Times     21.10.60

(Daughter in hospital)