The Girl With the Pearl

Poem by Abigail Pinto (‘28)

| SPRING 2023 ISSUE | POETRY

There was a girl

Who owned a beautiful, bright pearl.

It was once her young mother’s,

Given to the girl after she was smothered.

Now, the girl loved the pearl with all her life,

For it was from her father’s dear, dead wife.

She took it with her wherever she went,

From schooltime to every party or event.

“Gracious,” said the women of the town

“She’s way too obsessed, like a dreary old clown!”

But the girl didn’t care,

For the pearl was quite big and rare.

“The women are just jealous,” she told herself.

“The best things they have are their creaky old bookshelves!”

So the girl went through the days

Ignoring their deadly glares of hate.

One day, a family moved into the town,

And everyone was excited, for New York was their hometown.

Men and women swarmed their house,

Warmly welcoming them like old grouse.

The family had two children,

A girl named Sally, and a boy named Tilden.

Now, Sally was particularly fascinated by the girl with the pearl,

For she was a very curious girl.

Sally and the girl with the pearl became friends lightning fast,

And they would explore the nearby woods, which were quite vast.

They would go on adventures before supper,

And be back just when the sun got duller.

There was one day, however, that Sally insisted on taking home the pearl

Much to the deep regret of the girl.

Yet, after pleading for quite a while,

The girl with the pearl decided, “Yes,” with a small smile.

Sally whooped and whooped with delight,

And the girl tried to be happy with all her might.

“It’ll only be for one night,” she tried to say,

But the girl was soon to be dismayed.

The next day, Sally came over, and they wandered into the woods.

When they came back, the girl with the pearl couldn’t get rid of her gloomy mood.

Uneasily, the girl handed the pearl over to Sally,

Hoping that it would not be the pearl’s finale.

Oh, how wrong she would be

How she would cry for hours, right by the sea.

For the fate of the pearl was soon to be decided

And the secret of the pearl would no longer be confided.

You see, the pearl wasn’t your average day-to-day pearl.

It was a gift from a mother to a girl;

Passed down for generations

It had quite a burning reputation.

However, no one before the young girl with the pearl loved it so much.

The pearls would usually be kept somewhere as the basement or such;

Carrying the pearl around was a big chance

A chance the girl with the pearl wished she would have known in advance.

When Sally got home, she snuck the pearl upstairs,

Making sure she did not catch any curious stares.

Holding the pearl close to heart, she danced around her room

Humming a song about how a lovely flower bloomed.

When she was called down for supper by her family maid,

She placed the pearl on her balustrade.

During supper, she laughed and joked,

Not forgetting to tell her family of what she had evoked.

After supper, she played some games

With her twin brother, who acted lame.

They teased and played with each other,

Sally thinking how lucky she was to have a brother.

The two played for long

Before their parents sent them up for being wrong.

Sally, exhausted from the night, went to sleep

Not even making a peep.

Well, the night was windy and rainy,

It was not even zany!

Sally woke up in the morning after sleeping in,

Only to remember her big sin.

Scared, she ran past her maid,

Right up to her balustrade.

And there, where the pearl should have been, was nothing,

Other than the sound of the wind and water gushing.

Heartbroken, Sally took a step back,

What had she done! Did the pearl crack?

She ran downstairs and to the backyard,

And there sat the pearl, broken and scarred.

Sally didn’t know what to do.

What would she tell the girl…that the pearl grew?

It grew so big it rolled off the balcony,

Because of some random alchemy?

Sally thought of all sorts of lies before ending on one,

She would say nothing other than what she had done.

She would plead and cry

“For it is what is right,” she decided with a sigh.

With dread, she dragged the pearl’s pieces to her friends house

Ready to run away like a mouse.

But as soon as Sally knocked on the door

The girl with the pearl opened it, holding her pearl once more.

“But how!” Sally cried. “What about my pearl?”

How did you get another one so soon?”

“Oh,” the girl said with a grin, “I didn’t give you the real one.”

I gave you the fake one, the one I have been carrying around since time has begun.”

Sally was confused, so the girl with pearl explained how she had made a copy of the pearl,

In case she would break it, since she was a very careless girl.

For the girl with the pearl was very smart

And knew that she or her friend would lose it from the very start.

So the two become good friends from then on out

And would protect each other without any doubt

And the secret of the pearl mentioned earlier?

There was none, other than the fact that the pearl was stolen from her mother’s old courier.