20160730 (withered)

This is like Marian's scrawl except hers might get larger or go south across the edge or curl backwards. Lined paper I venture would have been a challenge.

Marian has only a few teeth left.

Her skin brown from almost

Constantly walking in the weather,

Her hair gray and frizzy by age

And nature, her gait still as 

Hobbled as ever, perhaps a bad

Hip, she was making her way

From a home for indigent,

Mentally challenged near 65th

To the downtown branch of the

Cleveland Public Library for

A program or lecture, I forget,

Stunned to see her again after 

So many years. As always she

Carried a bag full of who knows

What, maybe clothes, as through 

Her life she has been uncertain

Of home. She said she had been

Homeless for a year and only

Recently found a place. Her 

Plan was to stop on the way at

St. Herman’s and again at St.

Malachi’s to rest, grab a bit

Of breakfast or an apple to

Tide her in her trek across the

Bridge. We met thirty years 

Ago or more at a monthly

Evening gathering of local 

Wannabe poets whose sole

Credentials were notes

Scribbled on paper and

An ability to read them

Musically (?). She wasn’t much

Different then physically

Except for more teeth and a 

Quicker uncertain step. It was

Difficult to tell her age. Her 

Life on the streets, even then,

Had aged her. You couldn’t

Tell whether she had just

Wandered from home or had 

Been abandoned for years.

I asked if she still wrote. “Not

So much these days.” Her style

Was likewise hard to follow,

Words of all different sizes,

Drawn helter skelter across, 

Around the page. Only she 

Knew the order which often 

Involved rotating the page

To catch a word at the bottom

Or to start a line from the side,

All imagistic with a smattering

Of social justice content. What 

Amazed me was that she remembered

Me and named several others,

Who had married, moved away

Not again to be heard from. I 

Should have asked whether they

Still met, whether she attended,

Who was leading them. She asked

After the pets and noted Sophia

Walked bravely along with the 

dog. We parted at the corner, I 

Going south, she continued to

Malachi’s. I could hear her 

Saying something about Loki

And Sophia, not to a Bluetooth

But to herself, that marvelous

Intelligence, that read and spoke

Of Dickens's acquaintances, or

Of whatever she'd been reading

That week, and that recorded

Her patchwork mindstream, but

Who couldn’t or wouldn’t

Bow to the inconsequential

Daily necessities like working

To pay her way.

c. J.S.Manista, 2016