A Depression
She left the room undusted, did not care
To hang a picture, even lay a book On the small table. All her pain was there—
In absences. The furious window shook With violent storms she had no power to share.
Her face was lined, her bones stood thinly out. She spoke, it's true, but not as if it mattered; She helped with washing-up and things like that. Her face looked anguished when the china clat- tered.
Mostly she merely stared at us and sat.
And then one day quite suddenly she came
Back to the world where flowers and pictures grow (We sensed that world though we were much the same As her). She seemed to have the power to know And care and treat the whole, thing as a game.
But will it last? Those prints upon her walls, Those stacks of books—will they soon disappear? I do not know how a depression falls, Or why so many of us live in fear. The cure, as much as the disease, appals.
ELIZABI I II JENNINGS
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