ONE MORNING
Branches of trees
are hanging down
from a great weight
of sorrow of which
they know nothing.
Kids hurry back to
school, parents rush
off to work on a bus.
He sits on a bench
llke a stolid sphinx
with ragged old men
clinging to each other
in a fear of solitude,
wondering where else
their lives have gone.
They hold on to canes
as if they were swords
to protect them from
battles that lie ahead.