Hopeless

Social Workers, Case Aids, Probation Officers -
I see them in the halls and at their desks,
conversing with their needy clients.

were they bright and cheery once?
did they once smile and walk with a bounce in their steps?

now they are all the same color -
their pale beige clothes and their drab washed-out and over-permed hair.
they are the same colors as the walls and the carpet,
all quiet and receding, faded and bland.

were they bright and cheery once?
did they all absorb their present colorlessness
from the colorless, hopeless, lazy people
they spend their days talking to?
did they absorb the sadness, the sorrow, the hopelessness of these people?

they used to look out their small windows at the light
as they listened to sad stories of messed up lives.
the windows seem to grow smaller, day by day.
the light has grown more pale.

after a while, they don't even bother to look out the windows...