The Loyal Workers

Written for my wife and those who graduated this spring with their Master's in social work.

Who are these young ones?
Do they have names?
Whose are these poor sons,
Who bear the chains
of cycles of poverty?
Daughters of parents
who bank on the lottery
to sustain a bank account
that does not exist.
So to the streets they go
for a lifestyle they cannot resist.

Into the cracks and on their backs
they are forgotten
as prostitutes and drug dealers,
orphanage dwellers and bread stealers.
They become rotten
by the urban jungle as its prey.
They live day to day
realizing that they are become less and less alive.

But these are toddlers.
These are kindergartners.
These are kids who are future gardeners
of our society.

Why does it have to be
that their poverty
is the thing that disqualifies them
from the quality
of a life of abundance?
That the redundancy
of no food, no clothes, no goods
is the theme of their lost legacy?

So come your rescuers, you workers,
you heroes, you young researchers,
who know, who love, who hope,
who have a home in your heart
for these sons, these daughters with chains,
relieve their pains, wash their stains,
Do more than your part.