j tate barlow

Here’s the church,
here’s the steeple.
Open the doors
and see all the people.*


all the people

sometimes it’s all so simple 
childwants a song   again
at bedtime   and another   or 
a favourite fingerplay   then    
glow-in-the-dark constellation
guides him over the bridge
from awake to somewhere-else i
cannot know   i drift to earlier today  
in Februarycold   seeing someone lurch
near the church — 

massive stonework planted almost
two centuries ago — the morning  
regulars gather   park the stuff-of-
their-lives along sidewalk’s edge
standing layered they commune   or  
prone are blanketedmounds asleep? ill?   
“unhoused” we say   so-called bad
drugs lastweek took twenty or so to 
somewhere-else    by mouth or needle
see the steeple?

how did we get to this?
not wanting to editorialize 
(because poem) i askmyself 
overand over for anothersong
and try to dream up answers
to questions i can’t ignore
yet-to-come from the child
sometimes it’s not so simple
what sorts of reasons and befores
open the doors 
									
to a fathoming of benign neglect 
or greed whenwhat we bumperstick
reads   kindness to all/each other?
tonight theboy lifts his small
hands   wiggling fingers he notes
There aren’t very many people.
i agree   we carry on   chant
the rhyme a few more rounds
for it soothes (and is not lethal)   
. . .and see all the people.    


*~from a finger play for young children