20150915 (social awakening)

In The Brothers Karamazov is an image

Of poverty I found unforgettable of

A family living in a shabby hovel in the 

Moscow slums where the sickly father 

And mother wrapped in rags are trying

To warm themselves their children

Around a miserably small fire for which

They have precious little additional fuel

Dostoevsky describes the youngest as 

A small boy blue with cold shivering 

Inside his thin shirt I read the novel so 

Long ago I don’t remember whether 

The rest is correct but the blue boy

Shivering in a thin shirt has stayed with

Me over fifty years I’m not sure why

My only personal memory of that kind 

Of grinding poverty occurred when

As a young substitute mailman I was 

Required to get a signature for a

Certified letter from the Cleveland 

Public Library at a condemned property

Overlooking the river this was long before

Tremont became a preferred address for 

Yuppies in Cleveland quite probably a 

Fairly valuable home sits there today

But the house in question a frame with

Flaking paint only here and there on the 

Blackened grayish wooden siding bore

The yellow condemned notice stapled 

To the unlocked front door there was

No one on the first floor the letter 

Said up so I went up to a door 

Behind which I heard voices

Knocked who’s there mailman the

Door opened a bit to reveal children

In rags lying on a couch the mother

Dressed only in a thin cotton nightshirt

Stared at me with rheumy eyes coughed

As she asked what I wanted need a

Signature for a letter I explained as I 

Passed her the forms a pencil

Wonder what they want I knew what 

They wanted I’d handled letters 

Like this before the library wanted their

Book books back anything else no

That was it the woman so obviously ill

The kids too young for school the 

Dilapidated house so unlike the route

I’d handled in the morning taking 

Cyrus Eaton’s mail to him at his

Office on the thirty-sixth floor 

Of the Terminal Tower you had

To take a special elevator from the

Thirtieth floor I think his

Secretary was a guy in suit pants

Matching vest white shirt colorful silk 

Tie had I looked out the windows to

The south I could possibly have seen

The battered broken property on the 

Hill across the river but I didn’t 

Realize that was the day I would see

The top and the bottom

Of our society

c. J.S.Manista, 2015