Meditation

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Title:     Meditation
Author: Eunice Tietjens [More Titles by Tietjens]

In all the city where I dwell two spaces only are wide
    and clean.
One is the compound about the great church of the
    mission within the wall; the other is the courtyard
    of the great factory beyond the wall.
In these two, one can breathe.
And two sounds there are, above the multitudinous crying
    of the city, two sounds that recur as time recurs--the
    great bell of the mission and the
    whistle of the factory.
Every hour of the day the mission bell strikes, clear,
    deep-toned--telling perhaps of peace.
And in the morning and in the evening the factory
    whistle blows, shrill, provocative--telling surely
    of toil.
Now, when the mulberry trees are bare and the wintry
    wind lifts the rags of the beggars, the day shift
    at the factory is ten hours, and the night shift
    is fourteen.
They are divided one from the other by the whistle,
    shrill, provocative.
The mission and the factory are the West. What
    they are I know.
And between them lies the Orient--struggling and
    suffering, spawning and dying--but what it is
    I shall never know.
Yet there are two clean spaces in the city where I dwell,
    the compound of the church within the wall, and
    the courtyard of the factory beyond the wall.
It is something that in these two one can breathe.
  Wusih

[The end]
Eunice Tietjens's poem: Meditation

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