The homeless are invisible, part and parcel of the concrete in a city. The homeless may have nothing – no material possessions, no bank accounts, no postal zip codes, not even a birthday they can now remember (or maybe, they do) … but surely, they have dreams as they sleep, same as you and me.
I have taken the title for this post from Karen Elaine Spencer’s project on the homeless in Montreal, Canada.
Visit
http://67paintings.com/2013/01/
to follow through on this piece.
See Karen’s work here:
http://likewritingwithwater.wordpress.com
;
http://dreamlistener.wordpress.com
Driving through the city
You never see them.
The homeless, they are the faceless.
They apportion the invisible
Between the street and themselves.
But today, as I drive in and out of humming
web of streets I know well, they become visible.
The homeless:
rising greyly from a sidewalk that has
always been there,
resurrecting at a shrub-hid corner I have
made countless passes of,
and there, a child darts
across the mad street….
Where will they sleep, I wonder,
and what will they dream of?
The invisible must also dream dreams –
even if those dreams are images on water,
Where I am is not who I am…
The smell of fresh sheets, a fresh meal,
and all the sounds of a home freshly made
are mine –
A little tired today, I am…
so, I will let the sounds float over me as
the work day greys.
Where I am is not who I am…
[penned on a sunny January ’13 afternoon in Delhi]
Full of loving-kindness, the way you have written this new poem unravels a gentle respect towards the homeless, and the humanity we all are…
and thank you for the link
Respect for the dignity of the individual is the bedrock of human-ness. I wish there was more I could do… this is a first step.
Have a peaceful Sunday!
Dear MJ,
I just nominate you for the Most Influential Blog Award of 2012, please check http://meirozavian.wordpress.com/2013/02/17/most-influential-blog-award-of-2012/.
Congratulations and have a beautiful Sunday.
With love,
mei
This is the best thing I’ve read all day. Lovely, thank you!
That’s the nicest thing I’ve heard in a long time… thank you!
Meenakshi may I repost this post on the 67painitngs? I keep coming back to this post. It’s nawing away at me like some lost memory, some I’ve recalled for the purpose of writing something on the matter, but some (i suspect most) I’ve shut away as I cant find a safe way to describe those experiences of street living.
Sorry I digress, hope it’s ok, is it?
Oh, absolutely. Please go right ahead. I wanted to say so much more here… but it sounded trite, patronizing…. and I stopped short – hoping my silence would say it better.
I even suggest that you should feel free to modify it, add lines or words to it…. feelings are universal – they are yours, mine, every reader who reads these lines. I’m touched you want to put it on 67paintings, as a matter of fact.
Thank you, I’m really grateful for this allowing me to use this piece, for it’s provocative, sensitive and open ended. It’s everything I look for in a poem. On that note I feel ill equipped to alter this in any way.
You recently wrote that you wished you could do more, but you’ve already shown a deep subjective insight a difficulties faced by homeless: namely invisibility and indifference.
I will add my own view of this below your creation. Thank you again.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
Reblogged this on 67paintings and commented:
Meenakshi’s has kindly permitted me to reblog, her moving and honest poem about homeless in Delhi. She also invited me to change the words. I could not, for it had already worked its message on me. For days it gnawed away in my guts, in my conscience with little or no letting up. Poetry of this calibre demands a response:
Invisible.
Driving through a downpour
I saw a woman, hair streaked grey,
Lain out under a blanket
Head cupped in her hands
And no police or ambulance.
And I looked away, and drove faster.
On, out of town, to meet my unknown destiny.
Along the dual carriageway, sped past signposts to turn back
And as I overtook the hearse,
The wreaths around the coffin seemed to be calling,
Calling towards me,
Begging, beseeching, beckoning
Below the tick—tock of windscreen wipers.
Beneath the rain’s dull chatter
Behind the whine of engines
And chimes of breath and blood pulse
A drone, like that of bees.
Or the long drawn murmur of waters down a distant gorge.
Some message I could not comprehend
In a code I could not decipher.
And that sound, hardly half heard,
Settled in my brain, like migraine
Like a screech of brakes and tyres
And I stopped the car in a layby
Sweating, shivering, shaking
flooded by the naked ordinary horror
Pain of just living
Matter—of—factness of cruelty
Humdrumness of suffering
Watering life like rain
Repeating, again and again
And the ways death seeps, random,
Through hair cracks in the cup of now,
Eroding them into craters
In an unstoppable tide of feeling,
I penetrated through the thick crust of custom,
Of indifference
I turned back
The title is so powerful…and is the poem. The title speaks so much to me, thanks for sharing this. Powerful stuff, God bless
Thank you for your kind words. The title is indeed very powerful and we have to thank Karen’s insight and sensitivity for this. Thanks again, for reading.
Where I am is not who I am is a thought I will take with me today. . .
We are most often defined by what we wear, where we sleep and what we do. So rarely are we known for who we are at heart. Perhaps in our lives only a handful of people know who we truly are.
Scratching behind the surface takes bravery under any circumstances.
( I re read your post and posted this comment too on 67 Paintings: .Thank you)
Thank you! Perceptive and kind, you are both. Also courageous to keep in touch with these qualities. Many of us find it too painful to be in touch with our innermost selves… it is easier to focus on the surface – clothes and physical environment. Thanks again, for reading and speaking your mind. Have a good week!
It is just an accident of birth….who we are and more importantly where we are. I am always, every minute, acutely conscious of the fact. Very beautiful and thought provoking Meenakshi.
Yes indeed. How fortunate we are to land on the right side! How often do we think about it? My thanks to a blogger friend for making me realize this: 67paintings.wordpress.com. He makes me stop and think, and he writes well. He also paints and composes music. Thank you for reading this poem, Madhu. I feel ill-equipped to write about such a profound experience, but I try to delve deep into my subconscious, where perhaps, we are all homeless, alone, and blundering about trying to find meaning…
Yeah, loved this