Better Than You

Just because we have been on the street for an unknown time, With faces as pale as wax, Watching poverty sing, With a sweet voice caroling like a gold-caged nightingale. You think because we are poor, obscure, plain and little, Therefore, we are soulless and heartless. You are wrong! Yet, we wonder why your eyes are on us. We didn’t eat yesterday, We wear rags and our shoes are torn and as old as time, But our minds are peaceful crystallized palaces, Since poverty is the worst form of violence. Please don’t remind us of our pains and lack, Don’t remind us that we have the desire and the need to live But not the ability, We are already aware of it. The difference between you and us Is that we are hoping on better days ahead, While your present status-of-gold is coated with vanity, Expiring like the cry of a trapped mouse. The strict street is a religion, And we are dedicated members, Hoping on God for redemption, So we know, poverty is man made.