The inheritance of
any of us is dust, and the
birthright to settle anywhere
somewhere,
the length and breadth from
scalp to toes,
and the city ordained it wasn't so--
settle your dust elsewhere!
And in the cold of night
surrendered the meager things
of warmth and comfort to so much dust
and scattered belongings and persons
to the winds.
To the winds. When earth was the only home
that man would ever lay his form down,
of earth made and nurtured and all these
scattered dust motes once were enumerated humans
man and woman born.
Where would they go, these forgotten children of your
own ribs?
Where would they go, these houseless sparks of life
Once nurtured in human arms and human breasts
to be embraced by asphalt and condemned
by appearances and propriety to
be embraced by the dust from which they came--
though in their dignity and vulnerability, they are
the same?
The shame,
to deny a place at the table for those
upon whom so much has been imposed.
To sweep away with indifference beings of
dust, but sentience.
and call it anything but violence.
