A Mongoloid Child Handling Shells on the Beach

                                         -          Richard Snyder (b. 1916)

(This poem, taken from A Keeping in Touch (1971), presents a beautiful contrast between the normal and the mongoloid children by an economic use of metaphor.)

The child, who is suffering from the Down’s Syndrome, slowly moves her hands. There are seashells in her hands. They look like broken pieces of the blue deep sea. The sea gently sent the shells to the child. They are the most peaceful things on the sand.

There are some normal children nearby. They jump into water and express their pleasure shouting. They are as active as the sea-waves and as happy as the brightness of the towels they are wearing around their waist. But the child plays calmly on the bank of the sea. She produces a kind of humming sound as if in reply to the sea’s noise.