'Pop' learned, I suspect, even before the Great Depression
To fold his toilet paper with precision
Pepsi bottles were saved for the ritual return of their deposit
Beer cans were retrieved from manicuered lawns on the walk to Mass
When the cans lacked the blessing of a redemptive god called money
During that time there was very little waste amid the extravagance
Of what my young therapist referred to as the shiredom.
The waste thing has something to do
With the fact that they were a community of Puritans
Who held a vision of a very cosmopolitan Christ
Whose face was understood not in the visage
of great Rembrandt's work
But in the eyes of the youth they loved, disciplined and understood.
Bill Grace
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/poem-of-pure-autobiography-depression-dad/
