Poetry Friday034

Image by Franco Folini via Flickr

In passing

“I wish I had a house too,” she said, as I walked past her on the narrow city sidewalk.
Her young son, looking into her face as she spoke, pricked something in me.

Are they homeless, or renters?
They don’t look homeless, and
why should I care, it’s
not my problem.
Same sun shining down on all of us
Social umbrella wide open for rainy days, and it’s
not raining now.

So I kept walking.

I took the elevator up to my second floor desk,
overlooking upscale condos with private terraces,
trendy loft apartments, and ground floor commercial.

There,
just outside my
glass curtain

wall,

the street below me (below my superior sight lines)
existed only in traffic sounds now, and the hum of
the lawn maintenance crew lulled me with the familiar.

She walked away.
She did.
Not just me.

Seed of Samaritan squelched, I returned to my work – pursuing purpose.

She’s still walking.
Son at her side,
sun on her shoulders,

walking.

September 2010

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