The Porter’s Naiveté

This is a poem I wrote from watching the 7 0’clock news and an editorial on the life of a street porter, a girl barely twenty years old and the story of her daily toil. I thought I’d get into her head. 

From morn to dawn across the fawn,
The life for her is known unrest.
Her burden, a pan, it fetes her head-
A mass of stuff from woman impressed.
She follows behind with steps detailed,
Her eyes a scorn of what is fond.
A line of sweat trails down her face,
And wets her lips of dry and naught.
She wipes her brow, the back of her palm;
Her palm, a coarse unravelled brawn.
Inside of her the little one kicks,
A sudden chill runs down her spine.
For what she fears and feels deceived,
What life to give the one conceived?

Today is what was not ago
A life impressed of naught for long
A life back home, her mind recalls
Devoid of aim or gain of fame.

Back home the hope is fog and mist,
Pallid and stale and told untold.
Back home the life it bores and breeds,
The wish of one to stall the fail.
And hearts and minds of those who wait,
Cannot be made to starve the want.
For what is life without a prize-
Without the hope of looking right?
What tale is told of mundane lives-
If not the tale of scorched out files?
The thought wails down upon the minds,
Whose lives they wish to make amends.
And when the time for flight is right,
The space of life and land is vast.

The grass looks green on the other side
Not till you find no joy nor pride
The Earth goes round in endless bounds
Until whose hope defeat surrounds.

The south she thought she found back then,
A haven for hordes of those from north.
A place incessant with sights and sounds,
Where dreams come true and hopes abound.
The streets amassed with cars not carts,
Of various kinds her lips did part.
The buildings rose high into the sky,
So beautiful, God, it made her cry.
The south, the city that bore the names,
Of big talk towns and men of fame.
And so she prayed her hope this time,
To stay in want for a bright new way.
For then indeed her heart looked forth,
To making her gains and heading back north.

But now she fears the city is trouble
Enough to make a young girl stumble
Her unborn one has burst her bubble
The walls around begin to crumble.