Introduction :
Help has become extremely rare these days-be it something as minor as sharing notes for exams or as major as giving financial aid.
People have started to become increasingly selfish.
Thinking about yourself is not wrong either. But blatantly refusing to assist someone when you clearly have the resources and capability to do so is.
This poem is a reminder for those people who believe help costs something. They must have done something similar as Aida in this poem when they refused to help.
“Cost of help”
It seemed to Aida like a normal day,
She was returning from college with a two-minute delay.
She stopped by her favorite cafe
To get her second latte for the day.
And even after that, just in time she caught the bus home
And managed to wave at all of Mrs. Blanchett’s exorbitant garden gnomes.
On reaching her warm house she finished all her work
And found sassy comebacks for all of Mrs. Blanchett’s irks.
But when she went for her daily evening walk
There was something that made her stop-
A small, frail body clad in rags
Against a broken lamppost sagged.
The little girl had no shoes on her feet
And she was shivering pitifully for heat.
She had tear-filled eyes and a body like a stick
And seeing Aida’s oxfords made her victim eyes blink.
Looking at her, Aida took a step forward
But suddenly she took two back, making the air awkward.
Flashes of her own friends refusing to give her notes to help
Plagued her mind and reminded her of her own unanswered help.
“No, help must be costly, ” she thought to herself,
“That’s why it is so rare! Helping her could be done by someone else”
She turned and walked away never to look back again
Leaving the girl who did no wrong alone and in pain.
|
© 2022 Tanushree Shivdas Dhage |
Click Here to send your feedback |
