The Eye of the Hurricane

“One, two, buckle my shoe,”
-there is the slap of bare concrete on hot feet-
“Three, four, shut the door,”
-there is the smell of chalk dust, (mingled with “Heavy Joe’s” local bar where old men sell the souls of their children…,) heavy and listless in the air-
“Five, six, pick up sticks,
Seven, eight, shut the gate,”
-there is the old woman nodding on the porch, toothless and almost white, (wrung dry by a lifetime of tug-of-war between the souls of hungry old children and even hungrier too young men…)-
Nine, ten, a big fat hen,
-there is leather and sweat, sweet stickiness of popsicles and the dull clang of baseball bats against tennis balls in the center of Finley Avenue. The rhythm of being echoes from half clothed children to men too young to taste the fruit of despair but too old to escape it. Lady poverty rocks on her porch, weaving the tapestry of humanity. She hums a lullaby as she works...”Suffer the Children, suffer the Children, let the bread be shoes, let the shoes be bread…suffer the Children, suffer the Children, we are the world of shoes, we are the shoes of the world.”
And the little ones watch. And they see hunger and pain and the red rimmed eyes of a broken mother chronically bent against the tide of fate, and their feet grow heavy. And their feet grow heavy as they learn. And they are no longer children but silent shadows. Their eyes are pools of water, constantly moving…absorbing everything. Life is saturated with the eyes of children (and they watch.) Mamma poverty lifts them up and bounces them on her weathered knee but they are imprisoned by silence. “Suffer the Children, suffer the Children, we are the shoes, we are the world, we are the shoes of the world…”
This is the stuff of memories, this is the stuff of dreams; this is the eye of the hurricane.
Children pray to grow old, the old dream of death…to taste the sweet surrender of existence without hunger and sorrow. Death makes way for children. And so we begin.

One, two buckle my shoe, three, four, shut the door…