Life Lessons

I saw her last week on a bench.
I couldn’t stand the awful stench.
I looked away and hurried by,
and didn’t look her in the eye.

Her clothes were made of tattered rags,
her life inside two paper bags.
She wore a pair of worn out shoes,
her blanket made of last week’s news.

But something in her eyes today
just made me stop, not rush away.
I sat beside her nervously
in hopes she wouldn’t speak to me.

But curious to find out more,
I looked at her like ne’er before.
I saw her lovely weathered face.
What evils brought her to this place?

A tattered book was on her knee,
Her pen was writing franticly.
But seeing me, she just stopped dead,
and thought she’d have a chat instead.

‘I wasn’t born like this, you see,
but circumstance was cruel to me.
I had a husband and a son,
there was a time I had some fun.

I wrote some books, I tasted fame
with lots of credits to my name.
But dazzled by the brightest light,
I lost my way and just took flight.

I came home drunk, my husband went,
to foster home my son was sent.
I couldn’t work, so couldn’t pay,
they took my lovely home away.’

She paused for breath, I couldn’t speak.
To think I’d labelled her a freak.
This woman who had seen it all
had made me feel just two feet tall.

We chatted for another while.
How charmed I was by her bright smile.
‘I don’t want help, I’ll make that clear.
Just come back soon to chat, my dear.’

What revelation this day brought.
I’ll live my life now with more thought.
When passing vagrants on a bench,
I’ll think of fragrance, not of stench.