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Saturday, March 10, 2012

It is not a time for shopkeeper souls, a poem

It is not a time for those with shopkeeper souls

Meticulous in their ways

Whose daily commutes are ruined

By signs of closed businesses, foreclosed homes

Affronts leading them to drive down more fortunate streets

How to disarm those on

Such a monotonous, finite journey?

Should we fling the sand of Iraq in their faces

Or the mud of tent cities?

Those shopkeeper souls

Whose daily tallies reckon not with the invisible

Never seeking beyond what appears

(So carefully controlled)

Pouting when disturbed by

The sound and sight of others’ suffering

(So carefully avoided)

Shopkeeper souls think not

There but for the grace of God go I

But mutter

Why don’t they pull themselves up by their bootstraps

It is time for the infinite,

The grace of those whose souls dance

Extending a hand , willing to fall

Getting down in the dirt

Eye level with people, not numbers

Seeing them as souls

Not tallying, but rallying

The spirits of the suffering

Embracing reality on every corner

Walking down every street

It is not a time for shopkeeper souls


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