20150820 (kindness)

The pile driving sounds like it’s coming

From the east but you never know till

You track it down to a specific site

Bridge pilings in the flats 

A building downtown

I’ve worked with it suppressed

In the background 

Today it’s dominating my thoughts

Like the itch that absolutely 

Must be scratched so contort your back

Against a post and dance like a teen

Till you consider driving a nail

Through a board scourging 

Between your shoulders until you 

Lie in a heap of ripped flesh and

Blood your last words

Maybe more to the right

I’ve got things to do 

But the top of the list is to produce

Some concept worth disclosure

Proving you are not wasting your time

Reading my drivel tasks lay 

Numbered on two separate sheets

As if by re-recording them legibly

They call me more forcefully

To action which I know

Would result in true satisf-action

I was saved yesterday by offering 

The chicken I was cooking to a colleague

Whom I admire and trust as a meal

To ease her troubled mind a bit

It blew my schedule but I thought

All that can wait as it so often has

While I get some vegetables together

Procure a pie some sherbet make it

Something I’d enjoy myself

Isn’t that what I’m here for with chicken

Capacity time inclination car

I’m not committing to feed them forever

They’re worth it then today I get a call

From a church colleague with whom

I’ve discussed providing food

For his program of feeding homeless

Every couple of Sundays he’d been 

Sending me emails in the prospect

Of my joining in I tried to beg off

We’ve a comparable program here

In my neighborhood my pet sitter takes part

I could keep my carbon footprint smaller

By helping them if I chose apparently

I could drop the food off at church

On the Sundays in question not 

Adding trips to the east side

I caved and agreed what a sap 

All it took was one kindness

To a familiar face now I’m doing the same

For the faceless 

Least of these my brethren

c. J.S.Manista, 2015