I can walk through the streets
to be greeted by people who ask for
my comfort and sustenance,
who beg for their own lives back as
they reach toward others who pull
away, those who
hold more than their share.

I can wake in the morning to smell
warmth and coffee, a newspaper
screaming of hunger, of tragedy, of
death and the television that blinks
with the images of hopelessness and
destruction, of sick curiosity.

The illness and disease of the world
can be seen from doorsteps past
people whose ignorant thoughts
join the parade of the unspoiled and
vanilla streets and I listen to those who call

for salvation, the prayers of the
Good and Pious. They say the earth can still be
saved if only there were
morals to live by.

I look to the sky and cry for the
bitter workings of the lives that are not being fixed,
those who are left to wither and rot as people

sit and listen to lectures of Love and unwavering
Belief, and I look still closer to the opening sky.

I can see nothing to help us but the clouds.