Poem: MY GRANDMOTHER TOLD ME TO ALWAYS GIVE A BEGGAR MONEY BECAUSE YOU NEVER KNOW WHO IS AN ANGEL

Prejudice. 

When taught by a loving grandparent, learning not to judge people by their looks was a positive lesson. 

Today we say, "Never judge a book by its cover" so often it almost has no meaning any longer... they are just words. 

But, when something grabs our attention and our lesson comes from that experience, it is a lesson not easily forgotten nor dismissed.

© MY GRANDMOTHER TOLD ME TO ALWAYS GIVE A BEGGAR MONEY BECAUSE YOU NEVER KNOW WHO IS AN ANGEL

She said that the first time I saw a man

Who had no legs selling pencils for ten cents;

He sat on a two-foot-by-two-foot piece of wood

on four rollers and held out a tin cup.

Impossible not to stare at the misery

Pleading with my five-year-old soul for a dime,

I thought of how she patiently combed my curly hair.

Rain fell like quarters smacking the muddy yard;

The comb flipped from her hand onto the front porch

Just as thunder shook the small house.

She told me to get the comb, but afraid of lightning,

I shook my head; she gently pushed me out the open door.

Just as I stooped down and took the comb

Into my small hand, lightning flashed and

Thunder crashed simultaneously. I made

In back inside in one leap. She laughed.

Our maid slept downstairs, in the basement.

We got baby chicks from someone for Easter.

One, maybe both parents hated them. Grandmother

Told them they should keep the peeps in the basement.

Those peeps brought back memories of the squeaky

Square of rolling wood used by the beggar man.

The maid, being superstitious, strangled the chicks—

She wrung their baby chicken necks. We cried.

I had a dream that night about the legless man
and of thunder and lightning storms;

I thought our maid strangled his legs. She did not

Know that he had wings… That he was an angel.

Mimi Wolske

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