Mark Belair
The Line
They line up in the park by the church
where, at noon, the soup kitchen opens.
They wear hats in the summer sun,
hold each other’s places, idly chat,
mostly about family—kids run all around—
and health.
They barter a bit; make casual presents
of incidentals.
None seem homeless.
Seem, instead, the one-day-at-a-time poor.
They display them all, but
one wonders which—
poverty? generosity? graciousness? misfortune?—
came first.
Palms
Raindrops strike
the flagstone sidewalk
by the park yet, oddly, I feel not one
so I stop,
hold my palms up,
and finally feel a drop
which raises
in me an unexpected
dewdrop of gratitude, and as I see
other passersby pause,
palms also raised, I feel we are all
brethren to the park trees, their leaves
trembling
as they, too, receive
the fragrant fall, all of us forming
a forest of palms
held up in simple praise
of this pagan blessing of summer rain.
