Pantoum of the Great Depression

(Drought refugee from Polk, Missouri,
awaiting the opening of the orange-picking
season at Porterville, California, 1936 by
Dorothea Lange, 1895-1965, American
photographer)

The decade of the Thirties was a time of economic crisis. Many countries suffered through a depression with years of jobless lines and overcrowded soup kitchens, and in places like Germany and Austria, uncontrollable hyper-inflation that rendered the currency useless. In response, the governments of seemingly stable nations abroad disintegrated into fascism or communism. In America, however, its democracy survived intact.

(A pantoum, or pantum, is a verse form composed of quatrains with internal rhyming and the repetition of lines according to an established pattern.)

PANTOUM OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION

Our lives avoided tragedy
Simply by going on and on,
Without end and with little apparent meaning.
Oh, there were storms and small catastrophes.

Simply by going on and on
We managed. No need for the heroic.
Oh, there were storms and small catastrophes.
I don’t remember all the particulars.

We managed. No need for the heroic.
There were the usual celebrations, the usual sorrows.
I don’t remember all the particulars.
Across the fence, the neighbors were our chorus.

There were the usual celebrations, the usual sorrows.
Thank god no one said anything in verse.
The neighbors were our only chorus,
And if we suffered we kept quiet about it.

At no time did anyone say anything in verse.
It was the ordinary pities and fears consumed us,
And if we suffered we kept quiet about it.
No audience would ever know our story.

It was the ordinary pities and fears consumed us.
We gathered on porches; the moon rose; we were poor.
What audience would ever know our story?
Beyond our windows shone the actual world.

We gathered on porches; the moon rose; we were poor.
And time went by, drawn by slow horses.
Somewhere beyond our windows shone the actual world.
The Great Depression had entered our souls like fog.

And time went by, drawn by slow horses.
We did not ourselves know what the end was.
The Great Depression had entered our souls like fog.
We had our flaws, perhaps a few private virtues.

But we did not ourselves know what the end was.
People like us simply go on.
We had our flaws, perhaps a few private virtues,
But it is by blind chance only that we escape tragedy.

And there is no plot in that; it is devoid of poetry.

~ Donald Justice (1925-2004), American poet