Unchartable Ida

Unchartable Ida stood flat,
When asked, “Can you code it as that?”
She answered, “Not cleanly,
And surely not meanly,
But harm is still harm off the chart.”

The trendline was calm and polite,
The dashboard was glowing all night.
But Ida kept notes
On the hallway’s own quotes,
Where the numbers had misplaced the fright.

A blank in the survey appeared,
So the summary quietly cleared.
Ida marked the omission
As possible condition:
“Unanswered” may mean “disappeared.”

They asked for one number by noon,
For the deck and the quarterly tune.
Ida said, “Here are three
Contradictions you need,”
And the meeting grew colder too soon.

“Anecdotal,” murmured the chart,
As if witness and burden should part.
Ida kept the reply
Where the graph could not lie:
In the file with a still-beating heart.

The form had a dropdown for pain,
With categories tidy and plain.
Ida would not compress
What the field could not guess,
So the truth kept its difficult grain.

The quiet interval looked clean,
Like recovery smooth on a screen.
But Ida knew well
That a silence can tell
Where the burden had learned not to be seen.

The metric was useful and bright,
Until it mistook itself for sight.
Ida tapped on the glass:
“Let the measurement pass,
But do not call shadow the light.”

The free-text response would not fit
In the report or the team’s tidy kit.
Ida saved every clause,
Not as noise, but because
Sometimes mess is the evidence bit.

So if harm has no field and no band,
And the dashboard still wants to command,
Look for Ida nearby,
With the unflattened why,
Keeping truth where the charts cannot stand.