Please, God!

Please, God, help us find our way back.
We’re lost in the noisy city streets.
Maybe You forgot about Dopey:
He’s dashing about whither and thither!
We don’t dare let him out alone.
He needs wind and weather,
You know—that’s all his own!
He won’t grow on what he eats,
So many things to see and do,
He scarcely sits one meal through.
It isn’t much to ask for Dopey—
One spring and summer by the sea
To crunch along the drifting sands of Manchester Where everything’s so clear and free.
We never could take him to the flinging sands of Rivere.
He sure be trampled in the crowds
Stampeding in a Lachemere.
Sneezy’s voice is low and hoarse.
Happy doesn’t mind, of course
And Grumpy and I know what it’s like
to be shoved and pushed andjostled about,
And Bashful, too.
We can shout our way out!
But Dopey—we never know what he will do!
God, can’t You see your way through?
(1940s)

I’m not sure who “Dopey” is here. Could it be her, or one of the children? This was written on a scrap of paper in ink. Several words scratched out, redone. It shows her constant communication (prayer life) with God, as well as her love of words, her playful spirit, and, as always, her sensitive lyrical poetic frame of mind. It is in this poem that we see what most people never saw in mom, her very versatile, articulate, artistic, verbally skillful mental flexibility. She had such a rich inner life, very much like Emily Dickenson, the famous American poet who hardly ever left her house, that she didn’t need much outside stimulation. She could keep herself entertained for hours on end, days upon days, in her own kitchen, talking and whispering and singing to herself, so rich was her mind.