I move with windows which haunt me
windows which reveal
your face at age two or three
each day I rise
seeking to know
what can I do
on your behalf
your face at the pane
each meeting a testament
as to what I do or can do or should do
for you
to relieve that suffering I see
in those eyes
world wide
in the cities of America
in the campesinos of Latin America
in the Somalia refugee camps
in the hungry children of Africa
the poor of Appalachia
the dust bowl Oakies
the garbage people of India
the black and latino children of America
the hordes and young of Islam
the displaced and disenfranchised
the Indonesian masses
the aboriginal natives of Australia
the descendants of American Indians
the black Irish poor
dirt and hard scrabble small farmers
the Warsaw skeletal hordes
the Russian poor
the Chinese peasants working for pennies a day
the European displaced
the children of the "Arab Spring"
the unnamed, the faceless
lying dead by the side of the road
killed and murdered
by vicious regimes
stilled witnesses
who protested or complained
life sucked from them by the smug and the complacent
who craved their lattes
the 'who me's
who don't see their privileges were gained
at the expense of the slaves
at the expense of the poor
the blinded
the shunned
the lynched
the buried alive
all voicing
the cry
"it wasn't me
it was my distant
relative."

All these are at the window
in your face pressed against the pain
in my every meeting
silently intoning
"How long
my suffering
when will it be over?
And I vow
not long
not long.
Not long
Not long.
Not long.