Ronald Tirino Poet Free verse

The Modern Gleaners

The modern gleaners 

Postmodern standardized cities 
ubiquitous high rises of steel and glass 
concrete jungles of commerce 
of buying and selling 
trading moving vibration 
amidst the turmoil of the bustling day 
are the invisible ones 

The modern gleaners that make their way 
in the shadows beyond displays 
quiet slow moving stealth like 
modern gypsies in tattered rags 
pushing shopping carts through busy streets 
overflowing mosaic of plastic bottles 

Old men old women mothers with their young 
bent over curbs of stacks of trash 
these are our modern gleaners 
from the rustic farms of yore 
into our urban streets 

The armies of the unemployed 
the disabled and the weak 
they that toil all the week 
ten cents a bottle ten bucks 
a day to get some food to eat 
if it’s right or wrong I cannot say 
lets forget about it for today 
And look the other way 

But in the misery of their despair 
I see a beauty in their eyes 
as they reach for their bottles and cans 
the beauty I see is their inner strength 
not in the condition there 

It’s in their perseverance and their will to live 
it’s where the midday sun streams 
and bathes the withered skin and faces 
 in the golden sun       
it’s in their cloths of quilted robes 
that hide their worn down skin 
it’s in the carts of plastic orbs of mystic shapes 
it’s in the muscles of their backs 
bent summer winter  fall and spring 

They work the streets juxtaposed 
next to gourmet and high end shops 
 Where I imagine them looking in 
do they dream of such fancy things 

But it fades away and focuses 
out in the night of day 
to their thin worn out hands 
I think of those that don’t or can not see 
them when there walking by 

Cause to see them will shake the conditioned reality 
which would become undone 
to bathe and eat in splender 
Next to  such plight and hunger

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