These people need you, all right, if anyone does,
and I picture you among them, outcasts and cripples, the aged and ill.
One of them might ask for a light, offer you a smoke, 
like the young skateboard artist, not so young,
with the four-leaf clover tattooed on his right hand,
the old cowboy hippie wearing his dress boots and crushed straw hat, 
with a wad of dog-eared papers in his back pocket, 
documents important to him if no one else.
As each of these souls matters to someone, 
we’d hope, having gone too long turning our eyes from the needy, 
chasing the beggars away with a harsh word, gesture, 
not wanting to be bothered, with –what?—
more important things to do.
One might come to the station to sit awhile, without going anywhere,
simply sit and ponder, take it all in without thinking a thought 
and wonder how someone might claim to love his brother, love anyone, 
but our bus arrives and the gritty run-down dream is broken.

October 14, 2017
Shelby, NE,
Nebraska again, near Omaha,
having just returned from here, now en route to California