This is a poem to people who sit in shade
Of porches while other children play.
This is to people who cannot be attracted
To the screen of a computer,
Or to laughing at nonsense behind their back,
People who hear the teacher's voice in the remedial room,
Hidden from plain view, children in a system,
Not a school, over the voices of the ignorant,
The attention craving; this is to the people
Who know that the person next to them is good at heart
But cannot bring people to understand
The same of them,
Who understand that the art of an action
Comes from the heart, not the ability
To mask life in sly wit humor,
Two-second laughs that distract,
Attention spans not focused on much in particular,
Save what they heard that others will never,
And indeed what they heard was only an accident.
This is to the people who occupy the benches
In every park, mall, city square
In America, waiting to spend their bus fare,
Or perhaps give up on waiting.
This is to the old, the young who feel
Their lives populated by people
Who never were their friends,
Who remember their birthday
Every other year. To the people
Who talk to those who loved them
Only in their dreams.
This is to the people
Who spend hours looking out
The same window every day,
Not bothering to open the curtains,
Take a walk, knowing what's there
Every day. This is to the people
Who have forgotten what the voices sound like,
So that even memories cannot be brought to bear.
This is to the people who hide in their hair,
Remember images, but never words. This is to the people
Who wake up in the night, thinking poetry
In their dreams, people who walk the streets,
Pushing carts, spinning words in their heads,
Simple art lost at the next corner,
Meet the next dealer wake up
In the next day. This is to the people
Who can't go back. This is to the people
Who never saw the meaning
Of the word f***. This is to the people
Who were never going to give up.
This is to the people who see that every joke
Is a dark secret. Who are confirmed in childhood
When initiated into the cult of adults,
Dancing after they used to go to sleep,
Waking in the morning,
Realizing they no longer need to look through the window
To see the widow like it was a long time ago,
The old man beside his tow, sleeping,
Like stop signs and yellow lines never kept him off the street.