The Migrant (a newcomer’s notes)

Part Three:  The Pinch of Poverty, Adelaide, July 1998

 

The Pinch of Poverty

 

I saw

The Pinch of Poverty

(no, not a film;

it’s a painting, oil on canvas, 1889;

the painter: T.B.Kennington.

You might have seen it on TV, yes.)

Well, after my minstrel’s wandering of the medieval section

of the Art Museum of South Australia

I moved up the steps

and on the left the family, it seemed, was waiting for me.

A woman, as I remember it now, her head

lowered and slanted to the left and a baby in her lap.

She sat on a low wall in the street

and her son, his face pale and afraid of the world,

his eyes uncommunicative,

stood leaning against her side. The daughter stood

on the pavement, as boldly as she could in the cold,

holding flowers for sale. And I stood before them.

I stood before

The Pinch of Poverty

and could not go.

Well, I went round the museum and came back;

three times I went and three times I came back

and stood before them.

I had to look at the sadness of this beautiful woman;

I had to look at the pained withdrawal of the boy,

I had to look for the baby’s face and I had to look at

the girl’s brave demeanor and

the delicate fingers that

held the flowers.

I stood there and denied them:

I am not the father; I am not the husband.

I could not go but I had to; I had to go

and I always wonder now when I am alone

what happened later to that beautiful mother.

Whatever happened to her timorous son

and her covered baby?

Whatever happened to that brave girl?

And as for me, what happened is that I have to live

with my guilt as I could not help.

I did not help.

I stood there and denied them:

I am not the father; I am not the husband.

 

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