Ingrid Showalter Swift Poet Free verse

Live In Poverty Again

I will live in poverty again
I will eat less
Warm my home at 55 degrees
I will walk in thrift and dream in commonality again
I will tread gently
Walk faster
Work harder
I will face my tide of want with a greater tide of faith
I will believe in my makers willingness to support me 
and remember that birds are fed and bunnies survive
even when resources are very low
This is but one plane
This is but one place

and still each day is incredibly precious to me!

I will find joy in frugality when the others still swim
in having
I will not resent what I do not have 
I will make celebration of what still exists to me
I will better taste that which I am given to taste
and better value what I am given to have
I will love more gently and kiss more deeply
this life
Embrace me oh poverty as I embrace you
Tread as gently on me as you can
I will be brave
I will not faulter in the face of this your mighty fateful  storm
Because I know 
It is in fact not having that may makes life great 
It is believing in hope and kindness that defines us
We may no longer have 
and yet we are kings, Lords and Ladies 
if we meet adversity with the grace 
 enjoyment of the little joys
and touch others with our simplest acts of kindness
 and generosity
I will walk out on this long thin pier of want 
with the nobility of royalty
for we are crowned and honored on our way
This new land of deeper want!
May I rule my new land with more generosity
not less than I knew in times of plenty

Grant to me God
The dignity to spread joy where err I am able
though I can no longer buy you flowers 
Please see how beautiful the flowers of the field are

May you receive and welcome my humble offerings 
of wild flowers as once you might have welcomed the most expensive array 

Let us ... all of us who face a change of well-being
Be willing to reinvent ourselves in the beauty of simplicity

It does not take money to be a king or queen
It does not take money to be kind
It does not take money to be thoughtful
It does not take money to be happy
It takes the monumental commitment of character to face adversity head-on and drive on 
in joy
Today is still your only guarantee
So give your all today

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