The Harmattan wind puffed ponderous dust
into the air that evening in December
and from the rust appeared a blind beggar
wobbling with a cane behind a girl
who led the way across a mucky, uneven way.
She stumbled as she tried to keep pace
for the helper walked as if in a race
through a sullied street where I stood
flying kites with my mates.
“Your secrets, may God keep
Troubles, may you never see
Good fruits, may you reap.”
These words in a tongue strange,
like a monk, she sang in an even range
which had us in laughter reeling
as she stood before us begging.
Abased by our jesting,
her mouth in rancor detonated
spitting words in the panting wind
that squeaked like a balloon deflated.
Defeated, the teary wretch walked away;
her voice diminishing along the way.
When the Harmattan wind pants savagely
it now echoes with the rancor of the abased beggar
and I ponder what became of her and her helper
that evening in December.
Birgitta Heikka
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-blind-beggar-from-the-north/
