OUT WALKING BEFORE SUNRISE

Out walking before sunrise since it's 106 degrees during the day. To beat the heat you have to start early at 6 am when it was only 76 degrees. That's doable so I made my daily jaunt around the block and to the mailbox to get yesterday's mail. Was so pleased to see one of my poems I submitted to the Southern Quill made it to publication. It's been several years since I've had a poem published there. Here it is:

ABANDONED

 

Trash carelessly thrown from speeding cars

decorates desolate roadsides across America.

Garbage graffiti sends a strong statement

of disregard for order––or our country.

 

Twisted paper cups with bent straws,

crumbled cans next to smashed bottles,

dirty diapers, empty plastic bags wave

in the wind witnessing abandonment.

 

Men in orange prison jumpsuits arrive

to gather the remains of our laziness.

Freed for the day from daily confinement

in guarded enclosures, they collect litter.

 

Convicted felons charged with cleanup,

bring order back to the society that bans

their presence, uses their labors while

imprisoned, separated from loved ones.

 

Abandoned by society, banished to barren

localities, locked up and judged useless

like our garbage––forgotten––tossed aside,

inmates work unnoticed by passing motorists.