In That Slum Of A Neighbourhood
IN THAT SLUM OF A NEIGHBOURHOOD
In that slum of a neighbourhood
you were the Butterscotch Man.
Old. East Indian. Sikh. Kind.
Long white beard and hair
pouring out of your turban.
And as I can remember you now
fifty-four years later
you were a cloud circling the peak
of Mt. Sumeru
the world mountain
that walked among children
handing out one hard butterscotch candy to each.
You're always there in my childhood
on the corner of Douglas and Hillside
by the totem-pole telephone booth
everyone jimmied for change,
reaching deep into
your tattered sports coat pocket
with a look of gleeful gratitude on your face
that the light had smiled upon you like a child
asking for a candy.
We were too busy playing for keeps
to know how or when you died.
One day we just knew you did.
And we broke into your small ratty house,
that crutch of a box that could barely stand,
and we saw how poor you were
so much poorer than us
and even though you had an address
here in Canada among us
and stared out through the same windows
at the same demeaning day
at the doors of the desperately poor as we did,
how inestimably far you really were from home
and how alone.
There was so little to steal
who could have robbed you?
But I remember the strange calendars
no one could tell the time by in Sanskrit
shedding the pictures
of the same unnamed goddess
in flaming sunset colours
like the petals of a lotus with its eyes closed.
I can't forget the calendars.
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poem by Patrick White
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