I get it
The beautiful coast lines The sweeping and twisting journeys down great scenic highways The majestic Redwoods The meandering rivers The constant wildlife So here I am in America Crossed the border at Seattle with my smuggled bananas Travelling the bus with ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ as my companion While outside they tear down old real estate for new real estate So exactly where are the low cost homes? And it is not long before I see the herds but these are not zombies As I wander through Portland and every other city The homeless gather Heal to toe with the working humans who go about business and take in lunch Not hidden away but in plain sight for all to see Yet the people move amongst them freely without a care or any shame That this wonderful land of beauty and plenty This modern country Can only provide a sidewalk or a layby for so many to sleep When they gather as a community in highway underpasses they eventually get moved on I come from the continent of refugee crisis and we see pictures of dying children washed up on beaches How many babies have washed up on your City shores? Large movements of displaced people go from town to town and City to city They move across the state lines from cold to warm Gathering where the hustle can pay more Or maybe just maybe somewhere just a little less scary than the last place Like Catherine who I meet at the food truck by Voodoo doughnuts Shared my tacos and heard about lost pregnancies and cockroaches Longing for a women’s shelter While I stand back in awe at the landscape Try to take in the magnitude and magnificent of the redwoods towering over me Take in the evening air walking the long beaches with the crashing waves at my side Take pleasure in the company of strangers who for a moment are friends Like Casey the recovered alcoholic or LJ the roving collector with a pawn store This land mesmerises with its splendour and its people extend hands of friendship No more than our hosts in Portland who introduce us to the articulate side of politics And the diversity of Beaverton which contrasts against the daily spill of news of hatred and rage and killing and name calling in some vain claim to patriotism which divides white and yellow and black And as I desperately suck up the air of the coast and the river and the mountains Hanging onto the vastness and diversity of the land It’s the sweeping homeless vistas that brand me Its passing the beat up trucks and cars and shack dwellings tucked away in the trees lining the freeways The lone walkers with their signs carrying one word “Help” It’s a barefooted woman barely clad in clothes wandering up on Mission that burns my memory The vomit covered old Mexican staggering through down town It’s the cheerful demeanour and smile of Gipsy frazzled with dope and painting down on Clarion alley with bubble and squeak his white rats for company That tells me even this landscape of human tragedy called homelessness is stuffed a plenty with its own richness and diversity So America I get it You have it all Except maybe one thing Sufficient shame that in a land of plenty The lives of the young and old are washing up on your pavements like the tides of refugees from a long forgotten war |
AuthorI retired about 5 years ago. I had been in the Mental health industry for my whole working life. I put my spare time into art, writing and photography with mixed success. I found that I had a great capacity to be idle and I would love to teach this to other people. The opportunity to spend this amount of time together as family in these modern times is rare. I will miss my older kids and Buddy and my close friends. Archives
December 2016
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