The Throw Aways

Tonight somewhere another Mary knock vainly on our doors Another Joseph would pay anything for you to let him in The powerless, the dispossessed, the broken on our shores The children wandering on the streets stigmatized with sin A teenage pregnant daughter, an idealistic boy, a child cold And shuddering in wintry snow and rain, their body marked With graffiti of grief, O too pierced and blemished to be sold For anything but a diminished dime, for bed only in the park And on pondering city stones the cops boot irreverent pounds "Get up! you cannot sleep here, clean this garbage, go home!" The cold law without compassion, the barking of hell's hounds The fragment sleep, the figment dream, a city wide to roam But home, but home, no, O no! Not that pale brittle place again Not the silence of the voice, not the agony of inner shame Not the torment of abuse, the battered beast breaks the chain And streets are solace of the pain, the rage without a name. What abandoned building is the inn, what bridge the manger What throw away child is the Saviour's mild muffled cry What needle, what prophetic pipe, what project is the danger The mule is pregnant with the dope, and foul heroin fly What magi will tell us, what star will mark the maggot space Where homeless children come to sleep, and begin anew Their journey for the cross? O love by theories now defaced Give us grace to save a few, courage now to rise and do.