God ... or whatever - Jan 25 2026

 

God  . . . or whatever

Jan 25 2026

In cold this extreme

I think of the homeless man

in a scavenged tent 

under blankets he cadged, stole, or dumpster-dived,

if it wasn’t some kind soul 

handing them out.

A sleeping bag

smelling as bad

as a body that rarely bathes,

is dressed in layers

of thrift store clothes

stiff with age.

I remember summer nights

with a thin inflated pad

between me and the heat-sucking ground,

the nylon walls

whipped by a brisk north wind

and flapping like thunderclaps

 — too cold to sleep

even in my high-tech bag

wearing all the clothes I had.

 

He looks old, for a youngish man.

I wonder about bad upbringing 

bad choices

bad luck. 

About mental illness

booze or drugs,

a brain

badly concussed 

by who knows what;

if not an icepick to the head

we all can see,

then a thousand little pricks

even he forgets.

About a troubled mind, eaten up

by trauma or grief

too deep to bear.

And think of how the self-made man

is blind to contingency,

the crucial importance of luck.

How he fails to credit

all the other self-made men

who did what he did

and worked just as hard,

but now live 

in bitter cold

in a thin-walled tent,

their worldly possessions

half-buried in snow.

How he never considers

that but for the grace of God, or whatever

it could just as well be him.

I walk by, averting my eyes,

not sure of myself

and a little repelled

yet ashamed by my cowardice.

Another luckless man

who lost his job

and then his home,

the one-and-only love

who vowed to cherish and respect 

but couldn’t wait until death

to depart.

Much like all the others

who are living rough, but hard to see

in parks and alleyways

and dim backstreets;

who slipped underwater

and are sinking to the bottom

of a sun-dappled sea. 

All the flotsam and jetsam

in an ocean of prosperity

we so very sensibly 

take care to avoid;

steering around

and looking away,

calling the city to complain.