Classic Poem

Always they greet you and say,
" And what have you been doing? "

They do not ask
What you have thought,
How you wonder, naively grave,
In the rich silences of your soul;
Through what white flames you have passed,
Scathed clean, feeling your loves and your hates;
Nor of the dreams you have dreamed,
All purple and gold and the glory of gray cloud heights.

But they always ask
What you have done

And they know a thing or two.
F RANCES .

It's like this, Frances:
Time was when girls and I were well acquainted
And I would ask them:
" And what have you been thinking?
Through what candescent flames have you been passing?
And what — omitting their interpretation — have been your dreams? "

And they would tell me.

So now I say:
" And what have you been doing? "