Coffers

Fill a vessel with clean water,
and imagine a world where all
may do the same; imagining
such a world is not difficult,
we only have to carve out
a small space into which
we insert our intentions;
these are not meaningless,
in fact, they are essential,
if we are to ever change
the dominant paradigm;

Greed and lust for more
have held sway in this world
long enough, cruelties visited
upon others, bodies over
which one steps roughly
on the way to some imagined
pot of gold and to hell
with the fallen;

Isn’t it time we ceased
taking it all for ourselves
or for granted, that we,
the privileged ones
who possess such incredible
bounty are somehow entitled
to this position; after all,
we have worked hard
(and most have) for our
petty luxuries, though we
might not envision it so;

And back we arrive at the vision,
how now to change it, now we have
more than too many, how to use
that same focus on dreaming a world
where all are safe and smiling,
giving where and how we can
without tremendous sacrifice,
after all, finding it easier
than we thought to lift others up;
it diminishes us not, in fact
it fills us up in a way
that nothing material ever could.

Streets

How can it be in this land of plenitude,
our fellows spilling out now
into city streets, smearing pristine glare
of glossy retail windows
with the crime of their insanity?

I walk and talk with open heart,
not from a place where vacant stares
meet hollow eyes;
hear his story, however true,
offer a meal he declines,
proud he is employed, no longer able
to dig holes, he says,
since someone crushed the back
of his skull with a rock.

Live long enough and it all seems plausible,
as we stroll along, talking unselfconsciously
in a throng of iPhone-toting trust fund youth,
oblivious to the suffering their lack of empathy
stamps securely on a world they inherit.