Picking Up the Pace - Oct 16 2023

 

Picking Up the Pace

Oct 16 2023

Walking past the park

I avert my eyes

from the tent city

that's taken root there.

The stray dogs

running free,

who have finally found

love and acceptance.

The multi-coloured tents

that look almost festive,

but are cold and wet and fire prone.

The huddled people

weary and unkempt,

who must surely resent

my unearned privilege.

The sin of omission

weighs on me.

But what do they expect

and why this guilt?

I'm just one man

living his small life

one day at a time.

Pass by often enough

and the less you notice them.

You imagine the homeless people

were always that way,

or did something bad

and deserve their fate.

Who are somehow different than you;

another kind of human

and not your concern.

Amazing

how complacency

so quickly sets in.

A public park colonized,

grass churned to mud.

Sidewalks filling up

and underpasses occupied

as numbers multiply

and options thin.

People suffering

before our eyes,

weighed down by despair.

Do something, we say

to the politicians

whose business this is.

Meanwhile

the wilful blindness continues,

picking up the pace

and hurrying by.