One Touch Of Nature - A poem by Elizabeth N. Barr

"One Touch Of Nature"

I did not shudder when they brought
A wounded Mexican to jail;
I calmly wrote his message down,
Unmoved, I listened to his wail
Hour by hour, till he died.

And when Mat Grover killed his
   wife,
I raised him from a pool of blood,
Half curdled to a slimy mud
That smeared the floor and sill and
   wall;
I wore my shoes out, stains and all.

But when, with small inquiring
   voice
So plaintive in the dark^___
I heard a baby kitten mew,
Because the sergeant shot it
I wept the whole night through.

Pagan, November, 1918.

^__Elizabeth N. Barr.

The High Winds of Home
Elizabeth N. Barr
(Olathe: privately published. 1922)
Page 18