An old man traced by step by step
Long life behind and life still left
Through dusty streets bespecked with
crowds,
Most bowed and humble. Fewer, proud,
Of colors bold and raiment new
Stopped to talk. Others could not pass
through.
Others milled about. At last,
The old man found his own way past.
He bumped a proud man. Once he'd gone
first,
Some followed. The people blocked had
half dispersed
When the proud man drawled, “well,
excuse me.”
His tone threatened, if sarcastically,
The, pretense dropped, “what's wrong
with you.”
Said the oldster, “others needed
through.”
Said the proud, “and I should mind
the last, the least?”
Then he saw the oldster's clothes. “A
priest?
You think you're above me, holy man?
My need for labor feeds this land.
My money's real. False, futile
platitudes
Would leave this city unbathed, nude,
Unsheltered on unmaintained streets,
But I should mind to you, the least,
The fool who would make peasants king.
Your words lack both in legs and
wings.”
The priest said, “I'm just tired,
old.
You our labor, not our lives control.
In want of home, in want of rest,
We seek return to each our nests,
and in the moment, I brushed past.
Those few inches ope'd a way at last.
None of our best moments, I'd admit.
I'm half-ready to be done with it.”
“Well, I'm not,” said the merchant
next.”
“I want you whipped for disrespect,”
He ordered the re-gath'ring throng.
Their murmured cry: “let him go on.”
Go on he did, though not away.
“I'm tired, yes, most tired of the
way
Your kind use money as a leash
and tell us that it makes us free.
Without it, we would work to live.
Instead, we work for what you give.
We could be free, could be unlead.
Instead, we just pull you ahead.
You feed us, in the strictest sense,
A barest pittance, recompense
For years of work which you do not–
Then we're judged by what we've got.
How much time would we regain
If work was free, from coin unchained?”
The crowed, enrapt at hearing this,
Cried “burn this man! This man's a
witch!”
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