hannah's canticle (1st Samuel 2:1-10)

if only we would

look past

the politico's rhetoric

flashed across the screen

day after day,

    so we might see

    those families

    for whom poverty

    is an unwelcome guest

        who refuses to move out;

  

if only we would

listen beyond

the pious platitudes

so easily mouthed

day after day,

    and with ears

    finely tuned with compassion,

    listen to the whispered prayers

    of children whose future

        seems so sterile;

if only we would

disassemble the walls

stacked word upon word,

day after day,

by the dissemblers of optimism,

    and peer into

    the faces of our sisters and brothers

    mired in the pit

        of hopelessness.

if only

    we

        would . . .

 . . .  day after day.

(c) 2009  Thom M. Shuman