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A Sad Follow-Up To ‘Night, In The Wood’


“Night, the beloved.
Night, when words fade,
And things come alive.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry



There was a time, not that long ago
When I spent a lot of my time in bars
Now, I frequent the alleys behind them
A short distance, yet an entire world apart

Now, I will often wander the big city alleys
Searching for abandoned dogs, on the run
Last night, as I crouched behind a dumpster
I heard laughter from a bar, people having fun

But the many residents of the dark, dirty, alleys
Have no time for fun, in their attempts to survive
While most people are oblivious to their existence
Each evening, the dark, dirty, alleyways, come alive

This particular evening, I was searching for ‘Shorty’
A homeless, abandoned, down on his luck, canine
Most people ignore his kind, or don’t even see them
Many people don’t even consider their plight, a crime

As I sit here tonight, hoping Shorty comes along
Two starving cats appear, from behind a trash can
A mother opossum, and her two tiny infants, arrive
And suddenly, I hear snoring – from a homeless man

To my dismay, homeless Shorty never appears tonight
I eventually feed the two felines, and the opossum family
As I finally leave the alley, I leave ten dollars for the man
This June evening now finally ends, so very sadly for me

There was a time, not that long ago,
When I spent a lot of my time in bars;
Now, I frequent the alleys behind them,
A short distance, yet an entire world apart.

There are hundreds of thousands of homeless people in the U.S.,
And today, there are sadly millions and millions of homeless pets.

June is ‘Adopt-A-Shelter Cat Month’
If you want to help a homeless feline;
The animal shelters are all over-flowing,
As are the homeless shelters for mankind.


©June 2014, Mr. Ed