The Bag Lady Who Haunts My Dreams

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She was sitting on the pavement
on a small square of blanket
at the corner of Granville and Georgia.
Ringing her little bell,
she chanted ceaselessly,
"anysparechangeanysparechangeanysparechange?"
She was at least eighty years old,
and it was January cold.

I came to a full. stop.
Fumbling in my bag,
I pulled out a twenty.
It was not nearly enough
to solve this situation,
but it was what I could do,
right now.

As I bent to hand it to her,
her eyes lit up
in disbelief, in joy.
Twenty dollars would buy
something warm to drink,
something to eat,
maybe a treat.
Unexpected wealth
in a life of
bare day-to-day
survival.

"Oh, thank you, my dear!"
her small hand, like a claw,
holding my wrist.
She tried to give me her watch.
Gently, I declined.

I looked into her eyes
and felt fear.
Was I looking at
my own future?
I am always only
a few hundred dollars
away
from the streets.
But I have people
who would not
abandon me.

What was she doing
in her eighties
sitting on the cold
winter pavement,
watching all the legs
passing by?

Why was she not in
a warm facility,
being brought cups of tea
and muffins?
Where was the System,
that left her sitting here?

And where were her people?
Once she was beloved,
with a husband and a home,
with things she dusted,
with tables and chairs,
and warm beds.

What could I do,
to get her some help,
in town for only
this one day?
I had to keep walking,

part of the system
that left her sitting there,
on that cold pavement,
turning away,
moving past
the discomfort,
one more
set of legs
moving on.

Guilt.
Helplessness.
Frustration.
Compassion in inaction,
in a world so unbalanced,
no way to set it right.

As I walked away,
I could hear her,
still ringing her little bell:
"anysparechangeanysparechangeanysparechange?"

I still see her face,
hear her little bell,
her voice ~ 

every winter,

they haunt
my dreams.

Ella's prompt at Poets United's Wonder Wednesday is Kindness, acts of kindness towards us, or those we have performed ourselves. This is more a cry of frustration than an incident of kindness, as there was so little I could do. A dozen years later, I can still see her, remember her small claw-like hand grasping my wrist, as she tried to give me a watch in return for my twenty. 

She was still sitting there a few months later. And then, no more.