Applaud the Portfolios

Applaud the Portfolios

(“He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.” Luke 1:53)

Didn’t we hear it when the poverty crept into
our modern towers, our suburban powers were all
in a fix
because no one served mixed drinks anymore.

Didn’t we avoid the side effects, the stress-sweat
that followed dripped on the broken sidewalks
in a fix
over derelict cars never running well.

Didn’t we follow the lead of every person before us?
Didn’t we drive beyond the camps foreshadowed by
our taste for sharper images and victoria’s secrets
left us little time to add another 15 minutes to the rest
of our plans.

But the thunder will reverse our fortunes and favors,
tsunamis will wash the cliff-dwellers away,
no one will laugh at the hoarded destruction or
applaud the fatty portfolio’s disintegration.

Why do we wait? Why? Do we? Wait a few moments
longer
at the grocery aisle,
check out the daughters and sons who
walk and run in tennis shoes; then, single-file
inspect the soles abbreviated by time,
the uppers ripped from the pages of hand-me-down novels
and consider:

How long will it take for me, for Your name’s sake,
to see the tears we thought were the lament of the poor
are instead

The grief of the One who creates all to be fed by mercy,
no matter their wages, their mobile stages; but simply their
shared humanity.