Through the streets

I walk: striding, treading, shuffling

absorbing

the rhythms, the life, the breath

contradictions of black and white

Such soulful music

one man plays, slowly, sweetly, bitterly

each note emphasizing emphatically

that this man’s soul: lost, tired, and doubtful,

is the music.

A drunken stupor

succumbs another: shamed and stupefied

the enemy embodied in the bottle

But the bottle he holds

belongs to him alone.

There stands a girl

not a woman, but a girl: young, immature, naïve

her infant at her side

A girl; and one infant

Or is it two?

A street sweeper

with his broom, at dawn

he toils:

displaying the poverty, suffering, and need

ever existent behind the wealth

Hatred and loathing

fought on the street: spite and bitterness

manifesting

the victory of resentment

and the defeat of reason.

What do I see?

A beggar, a drunk man, and a criminal?

Innocence lost, poverty, and suffering?

Or do I see a music man, a talented, passionate man,

a girl willing to suffer the consequences of ignorance,

and a man working humbly, quietly, earning what he can?

Should I close my eyes?

Or open them?

Open them to a place where

black isn’t black –

and white isn’t white –

but possibly a charcoal gray,

a rich blue, or a dynamic red –

Sometimes I can’t distinguish.