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Living Ghosts ::
by Dave
Smith
It's
seven on Saturday morning, and I ought to be sleeping,
catching up
after a hard week at work.
But I can't sleep - and I don't suppose you can either.
I look outside, and
see the inch of snow
that fell last night, crisp and beautiful
like a white coat
on bush and hedge, and wonder -
what coat will you be wearing to keep out the icy wind?
I could - and perhaps
I should - go back to bed.
After all,
what can I do for you?
Will my tiredness cure yours?
Will my sad heart mend yours?
If I cry for you, will my crying dry your tears? -
tears for a land so far away,
tears for children who know you only by name,
tears for the burnt shell you used to call home,
tears for the loved ones you know you will
never
see again.
And even, perhaps,
a few tears left for yourself
in your rejected
hopeless
suicidal
circle of despair.
I look outside again.
The snow is not melting.
No-one is stirring - are you?
Have you left your bench in Piccadilly,
where I saw you, slumped, half-sleeping,
plastic bag at your feet
as I rushed for the London train?
Or did you find some place last night,
some palace by comparison,
where no-one stopped you lying down?
Maybe a floor in an empty factory to share with the pigeons?
Maybe a bench in the takeaway
where you wash the dishes - for a few pence -
unknown to the taxman,
when the regular doesn't turn up?
Or maybe even a couch somewhere warm.
Not the sort of couch, long and luxurious,
that adorned your house back then,
when you were the alms-giver,
the benefactor,
the champion of the poor of your people.
But a worn, stained couch,
bearing the marks of many bodies,
dark like yours,
that have tried to sleep there since
my land,
my people,
my elected rulers
deemed you unworthy of a place in our society,
unworthy of the dignity we freely accord to cats and dogs.
I did think, in this
designated 'Week of Action',
of taking on the 'Endurance Challenge'.
I think that we, as a family, could have lived on your
meagre handouts
for a week,
because, when it was over,
our fridge would have been full,
not of 'value groceries'
for those we do not value,
but of things we have chosen.
What must it be like for you
surrounded by choice
yet having none?
But your weeks never
end.
There is no light, only
an ever darker tunnel.
Or I could have pretended
to be like you,
for a week,
knocking on doors each evening,
hoping that someone I know
will open, in compassion, at least for tonight.
But it would all be sham, because
my bed
my wife
my children
and
my warm home
would still be there for me at the end of my
'Week of Action'.
So what shall I do
as I look outside
at the still unmelted snow?
I will write for
you
my Living Ghost
a poem,
that will try to say, the best it can,
that I hope I understand something,
if not much,
of what you are suffering here,
in my land,
at the hands of those who have so much to share
but will not.
And I will pray.
I will pray
that one day,
in mercy,
the sun will rise on my land
and melt the hard hearts of your captors,
as it will surely melt the snow blanket I see outside.
And that, as it rises,
your heart too will be warmed,
unfrozen,
and set free to feel and know
the rights
and privileges
of one, who, like me,
is also made in the image of God,
and is, no longer,
a Living Ghost.
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