Voices on the Corner. Harold J. Recinos

      to the mothers who work

      like servants downtown

      from five to nine each

      day for little kids who should

      not spend a lifetime on these

      streets. I walked past the

      coughing windows with the

      shades pulled up, inside the

      people filled with love’s highest

      longing, pitched broken English

      to others on the sidewalk who

      planned to spend the night chasing

      hope to all the corners for the

      sake of the bitter, the shivering, the

      wretched, and overlooked poor.

      Wait

      on the corner I have a friend

      who every day is troubled

      by the silent birds with long

      tails flicking on lamp posts

      denying they are creatures of

      sound. I thought his heart

      would break waiting for them

      to release a sweet song to help

      him shatter all the time

      he spends turning in circles

      beneath city windows that

      never open. the unknown

      that swallows so many

      yearly is always in front

      of him but he tauntingly

      waits for a sweet dream

      to resist the morose world of

      the walking dead. now and again,

      he will stand on the corner

      kneading bread with a big

      smile that announces a perfect

      hope is to him nearer, still.

      The Well

      by the ancestral well tucked

      in the forest deep, that place

      where the innocent were slain,

      history shuffles toward truth.

      birds above our heads today

      sit on the wild branches of old,

      speaking of the earliest cultures

      now gone that we come to weep.

      this well taught us how to live,

      sing, dance, and mourn. With every

      drink it gave the earth, the sky,

      the sun, the moon became the sacred

      world to us. Here awake this

      night, we eat and drink beside it,

      still.

      Robin Williams

      here lies another funnyman

      in darkness making our hearts

      skip knots. so many have

      made meaning of life with you

      filling their lines with laughter

      never finished by any added

      verse, but today we weep

      memories that drown our hearts

      thinking of you pale dead in

      the lonely grave. we understand

      little of death’s arrival, how it

      dressed to meet you, why it came

      with wordless shouting, or silently

      knocking at your door. we will try

      not to speak of sadness when the

      wintering birds return soon to darken

      the skies, gently bidding us to the

      stillness of your passing. and, in fearful

      journeys, swinging us toward darkness,

      we shall do our best to see you still

      giving us the gift of magnificent delight.

      The Prayer

      Lord, I pray this ordinary moment

      reaches up to you and talks as I do

      about these streets that know how

      longing is really a heaven day with

      no screams, or weeping, or freezing

      hearts, or agonizing dread to steer

      us away from your gaze. I hold

      my head in my hand waiting now

      for your warming Sun to cast its

      yellow light across the avenue

      that smells of peeled oranges and

      talks to us beneath a singing sky

      with birds in flight you made. Lord,

      save us in your memory like water

      in your hand that never spills, include