Meringue Poem by Diana van den Berg

She goes about her nothing way
Pointing plastic smiles at cardboard figures,
Doing relatives and others on given dates at given times,
As surely marked on some drab calendar.

With effort she could spell compassion,
but the homeless constitute a threat.
She never wonders how or why.

She fills her day with nothing things.
She doesn’t know another way;
She hasn’t walked damp forest paths;
She doesn’t feel the sun’s kind touch;
She hasn’t watched an eagle fly
And craned her neck till it wants to break long after bird becomes the sky.

Her outer crust has shunned the crisp
sweet green of freshly mown grass.
She’s heard of music, but hasn’t let it crumble her shell.
Nor has she ever reached into a painting.
Her thoughts have stretched once or twice
… to leaking taps and travellers’ cheques.

Three times she kept standing at her door and talked
To her lonely calipered neighbour,
But didn’t ask her in - you never know with them, she says.

She once or twice poured tea for charity,
but now she counts her money gleefully
and flits from England’s cold
to our sunny shores which are too hot
then back to England - it passes time.

Children and pets are not for her. They need …..someone.
She has no future, nor past nor present.
She goes about her nothing way.
She doesn’t know that she doesn’t know
nor that
she just
simply
isn’t.

(July 1998)