LITTLE DIME

An audible and humanly painful sound
Is left by the dime in a small tin box.
The echo of its poverty hovers in the air
As a constant warning to the world.
If the dark shadows of solitude
Would proudly rule the boy's little empire
(for a child without a window into the world,
everything is a fairy tale),
His sad and ill mother
Would weave the quilt of her life;

An audible and humanly painful sound
Is left by the dime in a small tin box.
The boy's ill mother,
Known as a quilt maker,
Calls out with a new painful sound,
Not as a curse,
But as her faith;

An audible and humanly painful sound
Is left by the dime in a small tin box.
Whose is the hand who put that dime
Into the boy's mother trembling hand?
The hand of a stranger?...
The hand of a missionary?...
The hand of a child?...
The hand of some wonderful angel?...
Whose hand cared so much
For the hand of his sad ill mother?

An audible and perfectly human sound
Is left by the dime in a small tin box.
The dime is reverberantly singing in its small tin box,
Royally proclaiming
- As if it was a golden coin -
"Do not worry, my friends,
Hunger shall not cross your doorstep
As long as you have me!"

An audible and humanly painful sound
Is left by the dime in a small tin box.
How many dreams, prayers and hopes
Did the boy's mother weave
Into the quilt of her life?...
These questions mutely knock against the face
Of many of their dark nights;

An audible and humanly painful sound
Is left by the the boy's tear in a small tin box.
The memories have long since trapped
The boy's mother's quilt of life in their silky web;
The memories have long since trapped
The boy's mother's small tin box;
The memories have long since trapped
All of the boy's late mother's deaf tears,
The little dime's sound long since died down.