Poverty

I know poverty.

Seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, speaking—
Daily it arrives in waves, torrents,
Contained, carried about in life,
Expressed a person at a time.

Watching weathered, limping people
Trudging about, through and on,
I think of troubled, wrestling, self-possessed Jacob,
Determined to receive some blessing, hobbled by the experience.

Tears flow from lack—
A mysterious depth releases watery, salty relief—sweat, tears,
Loss, pain, need, laughter—
Always I’m undone by the laughter—comedic relief.

Holding the children,
So often the products of a search for purpose, lingering embrace,
Once here the only purpose becomes survival writ large,
So, love abounds as focus fades in a cruel, satisfying circle.

Young—too young—mothers and grandmothers,
Some too young themselves,
Many more far too old
For the demands of children absent daddies.

Blame doesn’t work—nothing sticks with this hopeless paste!
Responsibility on the forward side
Seems a reasonable goal,
A key to understand, to investigate.

Smells can be fierce or noble,
Sickening or inviting, crushing or hopeful,
Depending on the soul of community—
Are we cooking or surviving?

I know poverty.

The impoverishment of soul, of spirit,
Of private, inner space,
Meant to be a meeting ground,
A host table for sacred conversation among people
Beyond caste and class and race—but it is gone.