Beyond Her Sight
Title
Beyond Her Sight
Description
This poem addresses the issue of homelessness and was published by Notable Works (www.notableworks.org) in 2021 in "Love Warms the Homeless Heart II."
Creator
Noreen Inglesi
Language
English
Text
Beyond Her Sight
She sits on a tarnished green bench
Blending in with the tall grass
Growing wild behind an empty train station
Abandoned long ago by a town
Undernourished by the stains of progress
Moving too fast for the communities to keep up
InterCity Transit superseded
By technological advancements
Replacing the “hands on” work
Displacing the people such as her
And exterminating
The community spirit.
She sits dolefully reflecting
On a time not so long ago
When she set her alarm clock for 6 am,
Swiftly got dressed,
Gulped down her coffee and day old danish
And raced out her door to this same train station
Catching the next rail to get to her job
Which kept food on her table
And a place to call home
For herself and her family
It seems so long ago to her now
When her boss came over to her
With the piercing news
She was no longer needed
Her job was discontinued
She was no longer necessary
To the assembly line which had shrunken
From the “hand of progress”
Which took no passengers
And was blind to the human toll
She peers up
At the fluffy cotton ball clouds
Set against a veiled sapphire sky
And there amidst the billowy mist
An eagle,
Its soft and feathered wings spread wide
Gliding assuredly from side to side,
Circling and then swooping down so gently
In a seemingly limitless sky
Images of her grandmother come to mind
She recalls fondly her passion for life,
Her inner strength,
Her tireless thirst for adventure
And precipitous determination
Overcoming one obstacle after another
She grins as she begins
To feel her own renewed strength
And energized curiosity
Ready to stand steady and undeterred
Whether the wind
Swirls with fury
Or rests with soft strokes
Upon her tender brow.
She lifts herself effortlessly off the bench
And makes her way through the tall
Untamed blades of grass
Which she views with new found pleasure
She knows not what lies
Beyond this tatty jade bench
But is anxious to walk on paths
Not yet vested or traveled
On a quest for what waits
Beyond her immediate sight
By Noreen Inglesi
She sits on a tarnished green bench
Blending in with the tall grass
Growing wild behind an empty train station
Abandoned long ago by a town
Undernourished by the stains of progress
Moving too fast for the communities to keep up
InterCity Transit superseded
By technological advancements
Replacing the “hands on” work
Displacing the people such as her
And exterminating
The community spirit.
She sits dolefully reflecting
On a time not so long ago
When she set her alarm clock for 6 am,
Swiftly got dressed,
Gulped down her coffee and day old danish
And raced out her door to this same train station
Catching the next rail to get to her job
Which kept food on her table
And a place to call home
For herself and her family
It seems so long ago to her now
When her boss came over to her
With the piercing news
She was no longer needed
Her job was discontinued
She was no longer necessary
To the assembly line which had shrunken
From the “hand of progress”
Which took no passengers
And was blind to the human toll
She peers up
At the fluffy cotton ball clouds
Set against a veiled sapphire sky
And there amidst the billowy mist
An eagle,
Its soft and feathered wings spread wide
Gliding assuredly from side to side,
Circling and then swooping down so gently
In a seemingly limitless sky
Images of her grandmother come to mind
She recalls fondly her passion for life,
Her inner strength,
Her tireless thirst for adventure
And precipitous determination
Overcoming one obstacle after another
She grins as she begins
To feel her own renewed strength
And energized curiosity
Ready to stand steady and undeterred
Whether the wind
Swirls with fury
Or rests with soft strokes
Upon her tender brow.
She lifts herself effortlessly off the bench
And makes her way through the tall
Untamed blades of grass
Which she views with new found pleasure
She knows not what lies
Beyond this tatty jade bench
But is anxious to walk on paths
Not yet vested or traveled
On a quest for what waits
Beyond her immediate sight
By Noreen Inglesi
Date
2021
Location
Cranston
Citation
Noreen Inglesi, “Beyond Her Sight,” Rhode Island COVID-19 Archive, accessed September 19, 2024, http://ricovidarchive.rihs.org/items/show/8345.
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